Age of Conan

**artempress** · 05-20-2008, 10:12 AM

Ok! Looks like Age of Conan has now officially gone online starting early this morning! I won't be able to play it till I get home, however I got the chance to look at the character creation screen this morning before I left and i gotta say the customization is one of the best I've seen for a fantasy MMO. Really, really in depth, where you've got slider bars that'll adjust everything from your facial bone structure to how big your breasts are (if you make a girl).

I won't be able to make a more detailed impressions until I can play the game a little, but as long as things aren't too buggy with today's launch, I think I've found my new favorite MMORPG.

Anyone else get this game? Thoughts?

**Travis Orders** · 05-20-2008, 04:43 PM

I am not really interested in it. I liked the fiction, but I am pretty picky when it comes to MMO's. I never gave much thought to this one. I thought that Anarchy Online started crappy & managed to stay the course. AoC is made by the same company.

That being said it might develop in time. Not much is worth a damn at launch, & after a few months of fanbois, & reviewers ripping them for all that they have done wrong it might improve. Give us a quick synopsis when you catch some gametime!

**artempress** · 05-22-2008, 07:32 AM

Ok, here's my first impression so far.

I've only played to level 9 so far, so this is by no means a full review. I'll be adding more comments about the game as I play it more.

Graphics:
Realistic, gritty, gorey, and also containing sexual material at times. Basically, what you would expect from the world of Conan. Kind of reminds me of when I played LotR-online, however AoC has managed to avoid the "dead puppet" look that LotR-online has with their character graphics.

The reason why I mentioned sexual content, is because if you're playing a female and you take her top off, you will see her "tracks of land" quite clearly and realistically. This will most likely lead to many female characters in this game. This game is not rated X though, so you can't take your character's undies off.

The graphics glitches so far have been very minor and have not detracted from the game play. Actually, I doubt most of the male players are reporting some of these glitches, as most of them involve the female chest, as sometimes the clothing will not overlap the chest correctly, showing your female character's "tracks of land" off to the rest of the villiagers. Not like they notice, as there are plenty of brothels nearby that show them more.

Character Creation:
There's a lot of customization with the character creation. You can change cheek structure, brow angles, chin length, nose angles and sizes, even give your character a crooked nose like it got broke and didn't heal right. You can change the physical appearance of a character to a certain extent. Make them skinny or muscular, tall or short, etc. You can choose from a fairly decent list of skin markings, from battle scars to tribal painting and tatoos. I made a bear shaman with a large claw scar from a bear across her shoulder and tribal markings called "mark of the bear". I also made her look like a true Chimerian, giving her a permanent scowl and weathered look to her face.

Gameplay:
Combat is more complicated than the more automatic style of most mmos. You've got directions that you can swing your weapon, and white marks that show up above, right, or left of the enemy tell you how likely they are to block your blow if you swing in that particular direction, making you have a little strategy in how you decide to swing your weapon.

Many of the special attacks you deal require you to also swing your weapon in a certain direction, which means you have to pay attention to how you are fighting, however if you pull off your attack well, you will get some very entertaining results.

Depending on what type of weapon(s) you wield and what class you play, your character can do some awesome stuff to his/her enemies. Charles played a Conquerer fighting three Picts. After he set off the right combo, he cut off one pict's arm, decapitated the second, came back around to kill off the first pict, then jammed his sword into the chest of the third pict, and held his arms out gloating as he watched his enemy gurgle, spasm, and drop to the ground still with the sword in it's chest. In a word...awesome.

Interacting with NPCs reminds me much of Oblivion and Neverwinter Nights 2. You get pseudo cut scenes where you can choose the response you give, which occasionally can mean the difference from picking up a quest or not, or how you complete a quest. Early in the game my character runs into her former slaver, and you've got the option to have a long line of banter with him before you kill him to try and get more information, or you can just cut to the chase and get your revenge on him first. I've also been told that later you can have the option on whether to use force or diplomacy to finish a quest, but I haven't run into that yet. Basically, later you should run into situations like where you decide to either bribe a guard with favors to get what you want, or just kill him outright and take what he's holding.

Current Verdict:
Is this a WoW killer? No, it's not. This is a mature rated game so kids cannot play, and so far as I've been playing it, I haven't been tempted to cancel my WoW account yet. AoC is far from completely polished yet. I enjoy WoW's almost cartoony look, and I enjoy the ease and casualness that it's gameplay has. WoW and AoC are just so different that it's like comparing apples to oranges, plus it's too soon to make a call as I've only been playing this game for a couple of hours total. I'll add more comments as I come across them in gameplay.

**Travis Orders** · 05-22-2008, 09:57 AM

What is the content of the game? Is it driven by quests, grouping or what? Are the dungeons int he game world dungeons or instanced?

**astralvoid** · 05-22-2008, 04:13 PM

Thanks for the review, artempress. I had heard several 'horror' stories about the stability of the game, but since you didnt mention it, I assume it may not be as bad as prophesied,

Regardless, I almost picked it up yesterday, but decided that I need to just spend more time beta testing Warhammer

Once you get further, post an update here. I'm interested to see how you like the PvP aspect.

**artempress** · 05-22-2008, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by Travis Orders

What is the content of the game? Is it driven by quests, grouping or what? Are the dungeons int he game world dungeons or instanced?

I haven't played far enough to tell just yet. Right now it's very quest heavy, but I don't know whether that spans the rest of the game, or whether it's just for the starting area I'm in now. I'll answer your question when I've played through a bit more.

Originally Posted by astralvoid

Thanks for the review, artempress. I had heard several 'horror' stories about the stability of the game, but since you didnt mention it, I assume it may not be as bad as prophesied,

Regardless, I almost picked it up yesterday, but decided that I need to just spend more time beta testing Warhammer

Once you get further, post an update here. I'm interested to see how you like the PvP aspect.

I've heard rumors that there are some buggy areas in some of the zones that you enter into when you get into the 20s (like the plains area) however I think it's only happening on the pvp servers or something like that. So far the starting area is quite secure from what I've experienced. I'll let you know what happens when I reach the plains. I'd say continue to play your Warhammer beta, as I've been dying to get into that for a long time now. Also, I hate you. I hate you with a fiery passion and please do not let me know where you live for if I did know, I'd kill you in your sleep and take your beta access code.

**Travis Orders** · 05-23-2008, 07:51 AM

yeah me to, had another friend get an invite recently... I have been checking my beta page multiple times a day hoping to see the APPLIED status change to ACCEPTED.

**astralvoid** · 05-23-2008, 07:57 PM

uhm...I sorta received a free buddy pass to closed beta for submitting a few screenshots in game, but gave it to another friend just today... ack!! dont hit me! i'll try to get another! Keep trying tho since they just let in another several hundred testers..