Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures

[ElPresidente]

What do I know of cultured ways, the guilt, the craft and the lie?
I who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile,
They fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king.

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,
The people scattered gold dust before my horses feet;
But now I am a great kingm the people hound my track,
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.

King Conan of Aquilonia - The Road of Kings
Robert E. Howard

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Harsh, unforgiving, lethal... welcome to Hyboria.

The world of Conan as described in Robert E Howard's novellas is one of the most enduring in the world of Western literature with the character appearing in books after Howard's death in 1939, comics, movies and now MMOs.

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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is the latest MMO from european developer FunCom (Dreamfall, Anarchy Online, The Longest Journey) and is an attempt at recreating Hyborea in a massively multiplayer environment.

The game has been in development for a considerable amount of time and just a week ago was finally released at retail level.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~elpresidente/AoC3.jpg

I've spent the past two days playing this game fairly rigerously and while it is too early to say whether the balance that permeates World of Warcraft and ensures its longevity is present here but I will say that for sheer enjoyment this is one of the best MMOs out there.

The game's biggest defining feature is that levels 1 - 20 are largely a single player experience with levels 21+ taking on the more traditional MMO role we are used to.

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That isn't to say 1 - 20 is a pure single player experience. There are a number of what the game calls destiny quests which are single player instances but as you progress through these you pick up the kind of quests you would normally be used to, including group instances, etc.

However this focus on single player to begin with is a great way to introduce players to Conan's world and provides a strong narrative to give your character a sense of direction and purpose missing from WoW.

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Combat is different too with an almost more arcade feel. As you attack with melee and ranged weaponry you can aim to different sides of the enemy to get around their defense. Enemies can, in response, change their defenses to to mitigate damage coming from certain areas. This makes one on one combat so much more enjoyable than spamming the same attack over and over again.

Quest design does not differ much in terms of mechanics but it is worth noting that the quest dialogues are universally excellent. You don't just flick through the text to get back into the action but rather you pay attention to what is being asked, the story context it takes place in and more. In many ways the game feels more like a single player RPG that your friends can jump in on.


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Visually the game is astounding but beware, this is almost akin to the Crysis of MMOs. You really need a dual/quad core CPU and a graphics card around the nVidia 8500 level if you want to playing this game with settings near the top. However if your PC can handle it this is the best looking MMO out there apart from the amazing art design of CCP's work on EVE Online.

I'm not going to say this will beat WoW's subscription levels but with the game being the fastest selling MMO in its first week of sale it is good to see that Blizzard's opus finally has some real competition... and it is good competition to boot.

I've made my home in Hyboria... how about you?

http://members.iinet.net.au/~elpresidente/AoC7.jpg

[Versace_SC]

mm i would love to try this game but im but im not sure my computer would meet the requirements...

[sim0727_SC]

This game looks pretty cool.

[HystericalParoxysm]

My computer struggles significantly sometimes playing AoC but it's playable. I'm on a P4 3.0 gHz H/T, 1.5 gigs of RAM, 512 mb 9600 GT. Needs a -very- strong machine to play well. Only major issue is that my connection drops when my CPU maxes out due to my wireless receiver being USB... so occasionally my game just stops along with the rest of my connection.

I am getting a bit bored of it though. There's still some bugs to be ironed out and it just feels sort of... eh... I've only played for a couple days total and I'm already halfway through the levels. The graphics are excellent, but there's really not a lot of charm to it, which is one of the major things that I like in games - it can be beautiful and have fun gameplay but if it doesn't really grab me with its setting and story, I get bored.

There's also not near enough money and reward for the things you do in the game. One of the big selling points for me was the lovely mounts - horses, rhinos, and mammoths. Except even just to get a basic horse, you need 3 gold - and even having played halfway through the levels, I haven't even seen -one- gold.

You're also limited if you want to play online with friends - they have different servers for Europe and the US - which, of course, they don't really advertise heavily so you may end up buying it expecting to play with your friends overseas and not be able to... without buying another copy of the game. I'd asked their support if they could give me an EU key since I hadn't used mine and my copy is US and they wouldn't... ugh.

[ElPresidente]

For me the story and setting is one of its strongest features. This is the first time an MMO outside of EVE has really made me interested in the world.

So much so I've started reading the Robert E. Howard stories to learn more about the world I'm exploring. I find it so rich with history that I honestly feel at home when my dear sweet Annah returns to Khemi in Stygia.

I definitely agree that there is a way to go with bugs (For the love of God funcom... fix the Pyramid of Ancients quests!) and filling out PvE content but contrasted against other MMOs at this stage of their lives I'm very impressed.

[HystericalParoxysm]

I'd like to read the books, but I really don't find the mythology carries over enough... Just feels like they've slapped a cheap coat of paint on something generic. I do enjoy reading the little text things on loading screens - lord knows I sit on them long enough to read them all several times... it makes me want to read the books more but it doesn't really make me feel more immersed in the world of the game itself.

I'm strongly considering cancelling my account with the latest patch. They've removed XP rewards for grey quests... which completely removes all incentive to do lower-level quests, exploring other areas that you may not have gone to yet. There was nothing broken with the way it worked - the higher level you get, the more XP it takes to level, therefore low-level quests that only give a small amount of XP don't unbalance things whatsoever. Now most of the quests I've got in my journal - some already completed, just not turned in, have become utterly useless. I don't know why they're taking away the enjoyable parts of the game. I loved that you could do lower-level quests and use it as a way to tour new areas and enjoy other storylines while getting a small reward. Lower level quests often unlock later quests for higher levels, but now there's no reason to even start on those storylines - why spend a long time running around doing stuff that is completely and utterly worthless to you just to do something later that you might still be within the level range to get a reward for?

They've also changed it so if someone else hits the mob you're currently fighting, it reduces your XP. I'm -always- getting people running by and smacking the mob I'm fighting. I don't know why - maybe they think they're helping, maybe they're just bored... maybe they're asshats. But the fact that my rewards are reduced because of some other idiot's actions pisses me off.

Combine that with yet more invisible walls, lack of ability to climb slopes, and an utter failure to fix major issues like serious load times, memory leaks, and crashes... I logged in for about 15 minutes earlier today, ran around a little bit, sighed as I discovered yet another bug, realized most of my quests were useless despite already having time spent doing them, looked at my money realizing I'd -never- have a horse despite being halfway through the levels, and logged out.

It's a beautiful game, but honestly it's feeling more and more just like a bunch of useless eye candy. I know it's still a very new game but this trend of fixing stuff that wasn't broken while failing to concentrate on actual bugs and issues is not at all encouraging.