Age of Conan... Is it worth the hype?

My initial reaction to AoC was that of interest. I had grown tired of the cookie cutter game that is World of Warcraft. Like many people, the initial awe of exploration has worn off and after being on my 3rd character and having run instances over and over again to get rep and drops... things were starting to get dull. AoC seemed to give the promise of something exciting and new to explore.

One of the nice and not so nice things about AoC is its system requirements. Better graphics but definitly putting some people out of the ability to play.

Definitely check them out online before purchasing the game. I mean the box recommends 512MB graphics card with a Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better with 32 GB of free space (at least space is cheap).

After playing the game... for god sakes pray your graphics card runs it. I'd say NVIDA GeForce 8800 GT is what you really want to be able to experience this game.

So I got a call yesterday that my game is ready to be picked up. So I'll be going in a couple hours to get it and detail out what's inside the box.
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Alright I have the lovely box in my possession. It is a two disc dvd instal package with a lovely game manual and a free 7 day guest pass. I have the normal edition, I didn't shell out the money for the collector's. I actually had to turn around half way through the mall and go back because I remembered... where was my fuzzy mammoth (which comes with game stop preorders)!



Now they are offering a early start date of preorder starting tomorrow (May 17th) for an additional $5 but it also comes with 10 days of game time which I think is worth it.

So what exactly is it that is making the number of want to be beta testers hit over one million? Basicly Age of Conan seems to be taking the next step in MMORPG gaming.

Story/Quests: As a game of this type should it has a story. What is interesting about AoC is the quests that you do in the game are meant to be directly related to the storyline of the entire game. An interesting thing? Maybe people might actually read quests instead of skipping straight to 'ok what do I have to do?'

Another interesting thing about questing in Age of Conan is there's dialog. They speak and you have responses you can choose from. And yes they really do talk, making questing a lot more interesting.

Combat: Age of Conan is suppose to have a revolutionary combat system. You decide blow by blow how the fight goes. Rangers even have to point and aim. Wow we can't have noobs playing rangers! The combat system is mean to measure a players skill more accurately as well as involve them more in the fight. There is no auto attack. Did i mention blood? Like gallons of blood? I've heard it to be quite excessive but hey who doesn't like some gore?

Mounted Combat: Another interesting feature I look forward to testing out is mounted combat. Not only are you *finally* able to fight while mounted but your type of mount comes into play. There is the Rhino, Mammoth and Horse that I know of. Each with their out characteristics as well as subclasses of each mount. For example- the horse is fast while the Mammoth soaks up damage. Not only that but how fast you're riding can also impact the type of blow you'll deal to you're enemy.

Siege combat: Age of Conan plans to let players conduct massive siege warfare. This is probably one of the only areas for the moment I'm more skeptical about only because getting together that many people in an organized manner may prove difficult.

Professions: Perhaps the highlight profession is the profession of a building. Yes you can build stuff. Cool huh?

There are 3 races in Age of Conan.

The Aquilonians The Aquilonians are basically your Rome type of race. Disciplined and tend to be more soldiers and warrior classes can be found here.









The Cimmerians The Cimmerians are basically the barbarian race. They value physical strength as well as the powers of seers and shaman.









The Stygians The Stygians remind me of the Egyptians. They value magic above all else. A scholarly race along with assassins and thieves. They worship the serpent god Set who is a cruel god, often demanding many blood sacrifices.

Classes:

Guardian (Soldier): The most heavily armored of all classes. The only class than can wear full plate. No two-hand weapons.

Conqueror (Soldier): An offensive melee class. capable of use many of the different weaposn including two-handed. Their highest armor class is heavy. No shields.

Dark Templar (Soldier): A heavily armored warrior who uses dark spells to aide his attacks. Has spells that leech live from himself and his party. No two-handed weapons.

Demonologist (Mage): An offensive caster capable of summoning demons and wielding deadly elemental powers such as fire and electricity. Weakness is only cloth armor and limited weapons.

Necromancer (Mage): This class has the ability to summon and command the undead. Their powers range from corruption to freezing touch. They are capable of becoming liches. Weakness is cloth armor and limited weapons.

Herald of Xotli (Mage) This class is a very interesting combination of melee and caster abilities. They are even capable of using two-handed swords. They serve the demon-god Xotli who is an evil fierce being. Weakness is cloth armor.

Bear Shaman (Priest): The bear shaman is the healer of the cimmerians. They are capable of healing as well heavy melee attacks. Like most shaman they have totems. They are the most heavily armored healing class. Disadvantage is probably they are not as capable a healer.

Priest of Mitra (Priest): The strongest of all healing classes they are the righteous, able to attack with holy damage and impair enemies. Weakness is cloth armor.

Tempest of Set (Priest): The healer for Stygia weild talismans, tomes and hearts of slain monsters. They are able to heal in masses and are capable of using shields. Weakness would be cloth armor.

Barbarian (Rogue) Capable of using many weapons they are a deadly force. The more damage they take the stronger they become with harder and more varied attacks. They excel at sneaking. Weakness would be cloth armor.

Assassin (Rogue): Assassins are deadly and quiet. They are capable of dual weilding daggers. Apparently they are able to do unholy attacks as well as poison. Weakness is cloth armor and limited weapons.

Ranger (Rogue): The ranger is the best obviously ranged combatant. They have various special shots to attack their enemies with such as bleeding damage. Weakness is medium armor and no two handed weapons.

Server Types: The creators of Age of Conan were initially open still to tweaking server types. It appears they have decided on PvE, PvP, and RPPvP. Not the wisest choice I think since many would have liked a RPPvE server. Perhaps AoC though will reconsider this?

Night and Day?!: Alright his partly confused me "By talking to your trainer, you can alternate between night and day" Me:... ok that's weird. But apparently Night is a single-player environment and day is a multiplayer. In multiplayer environment day and night will occur naturally without disrupting the multiplayer experience. Addition: Night and Day is turning out to be interesting. You get to switch between single player and multiplayer. So far for me it's been class specific quests.

Instances: Yes there will be instances of course. What i found interesting was if areas become highly dense in population the game will create an 'instance' of that area to provide better game play. You will be allowed to switch instances of that area almost like channels. I guess this will be the solution to siege combat without breaking the server?

Combat continued: The little manual also goes in to explain the combat system.
You will be able to choose how you swing by clicking or hot keys. These will be linked to directional arrows- left, right, straight, back-left, back-right. You will be able to attempt to block, dodge and create combos.
Blocking will be holding down a key that can create life penalties if you keep holding it down. So no eternal blocking.
Dodging will be done by double tapping the movement keys.
Combos can be created with a special shortcut bar to yield extra damage.

NPCS: Dialog will determine quests and game experience!

OMG HOW MUCH SLOWER CAN THIS THING GO! Warning to the eager. It took me 45 minutes to go through ONE disc. So don't worry if the thing looks like it died. It took 10-20 minutes for things to budge once I put in disc 2... I don't have an accurate time on that because I didn't click the pop up of "ok" after inserting disc two. Make sure to click ok Just a precaution I can't tell if it was trying to read before.

There is patching after loading the game. Yes even though it's brand new you have about 15-20 minutes of patching to do.

ALL EARLY ACCESS IS SOLD OUT *cry*
I guess Funcom was unable to anticipate the obvious... everyone wants early access. For many players the deal of early access for $5 was not honored. Like me -_-

Character Creation: Hot. Definitely a highlight of the game. I'm very pleased at the level of customization available. Personally I made a Stygian girl and had much fun cycling through the many tattoo/scar variations. I wish there were a bit more facial variations but over all 8/10

Note- If you have trouble loading the graphics like for example, all I saw was my character's hair, eyeballs and a burn like skull (yes creepy way to load my game) in your video make sure you have the latest directX selected. Mine was set to 9 for some reason and should have been on 10.

Intro: Alright so I washed up on shore after a storm wrecked the slave ship I was on. Me, I was a slave in a red bikini -_- what kind of slave was I? Very nice cinematic sort of intro. At the time I was experiencing lag. I think I think I fixed it but I will be pissed if my machine is lagging. Yeah so a guide meets me, I ignore what he's saying cause I'm pissed over lag but I had to go to work so I will continue my report later.

So I've been play AoC for a month now so I've got a decent feel for the game.

The game is absolutely beautiful in terms of the graphics. It is one of the things that really makes the game worthwhile.

The questing was actually fun at times. No reputation grinding. In tortage you actually get voice dialogs which I hope will be implemented through the entire game as it stops after the first starting area.

Single player and multiplayer mode make the game challenging. Single player mode always adjusts to your current level so you must have skill to complete your single player quests and you cannot just level over them.

At the moment the game is not able to accommodate those that wish to power level to 80. The siege combat is not ready yet. At the moment the game is for those who wish to take their time leveling.

Class balance is clearly lacking but that is to be expected since the game is new. My necromancer does terrible but my ranger is awesome.

There are definitely bugs with in the game that are being worked out. Currently those with better than recommended system specs will be doing the best. The game is not yet optimized for those with systems that are minimum to recommended specs. Even those with above recommended specs may run into trouble (refer to my AoC troubleshooting guide to help you get started).

All in all AoC has great potential. Once some of the kinks start to be worked out then we will be able to see what this game will become.

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