Hands-On with Age of Conan (Part 1)

By Alan Bell

With Activision Blizzard pulling in something like $1.5 billion US a month in subscription fees for World of Warcraft alone, it's no real shock to even a casual observer that there has been a lot of interest in the genre of late. There are a lot of high profile releases in the near future (and recent past), most of which are either doomed to fail or already have. Why exactly is anyone's guess; there's a lot of theories, any one of which (or, more likely, a combination of which) may be the reason. But that's not going to stop people trying - there will be a next big thing and people are stacking up cash in their corners, betting it will be their title that topples the giant.

Which brings us to Conan.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is the new MMO (come singleplayer game - we'll get to that in a second) from Norwegian based Funcom. They're not new to the genre, having released the critically acclaimed (and commercially successful - at least, for the time) Anarchy Online as well as its many expansions. They also have a super secret next-gen MMO in the works, called The Secret World, slated for release on 360 and PC some time in the future.

AoC, much as the name suggests, is set in the mythical world of Conan the Cimmerian - a world first invented in 1932 but ultimately brought to most people's attention with the first really successful film to feature Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Barbarian. In AoC you don't play as Conan but instead enter into existence as an escaped slave, freed by chance when your slave ship was destroyed and most of your companions (and slavers) were killed.

Due for release in NZ on the 27th of May, Age of Conan is currently in beta testing and we've been given a code of our own to take it for a spin. Before we get stuck in, a quick note on my background: as your guide, it's probably a good idea if you know where i'm coming from, to give my impressions some context. The only MMO I've ever spent any serious time in (assuming you consider 40+ hours a week, every week, for nearly 3 years is serious!) is World of Warcraft. So, most of my comparisons (where such a thing is necessary) will be to that game.

First up, installing it. Not normally an issue with a game off the shelf, downloadable betas often have their own special issues attached - and AoC didn't disappoint. The initial download was ten gigabytes or so, followed up by between 10 and 15 GB of patches; exactly how many is unclear, however, due to the fact that the game needed frequent hand holding (read: running of repair tools, reboots and diagnostic research), at the end of which it would download yet more data. After multiple restarts and three days of attempts, the latest version was finally up and running.

What exactly this means for the retail release is unclear. Given it's only a few weeks away, and that this "large patch" experience was not restricted to just the most recent release, it seems fair to imagine that reasonably hefty data caps will be part of the minimum requirements for early adopters. It's certainly something we'll keep an eye on, closer to release, and of course keep you informed of.

On your first run through of the game, you'll need to create your first toon; if you plan to play with friends, make sure you all choose the same server! For the beta, there are eight different servers to choose from (only one of which is PVP), with three dedicated to international languages (German, French and Spanish). Players appear to be capped at a total of 8 different characters, regardless of server. Once you have an alt or two on servers with friends and a bank alt or pvp twink, that space is likely to disappear fast. Will be interesting to see if that limitation changes over time - still, a huge bonus over that seen in the recent Fury, which bizarrely limited you to one.

Character creation is initially a bit overwhelming - not because the interface is particularly complex (it's nice, very nice) but just because there are so many options! Talk about all your Christmases come at once - for an ex-WoW player, the sheer depth of the character creation system is truly amazing. Sure, there are only three races but there are also twelve classes to min/max, along with a level of visual customization that boggles the mind. No longer are you restricted to characters of the same height as all other players in the world, as you can customize not only the vertical inclinations of your avatar but also its build! Like to play a female character (even if you're a fella - we call you people Manginas, by the way)? You'll be pleased to know that you can individually custom-size your character's bosoms (if you like a good perve at digital curves, you'll be pleased to know the detail extends all the way to the nipples, which are present).

The customization doesn't end with the perfect side-boob either - there are dozens of sliders and listboxes from which you can craft the ultimate in-game presentation of your "doesn't get out anywhere near enough" personality. Spend enough time here and you can be as close to certain as can be that you'll never see anyone else out there that looks like you. Coming from the everyone-looks-the-same city hub of Warcraft, to describe the feature as refreshing is like describing the sun as "rather hot"; it just doesn't come close.

Once you've crafted the manliest man this side of The Rock (or womanliest woman this side of Megan Fox), the story progresses to your (rather soaked and ill equipped form) washing up on the beach of Tortage Island - the tutorial zone, for want of a better term. You are immediately presented with a large amount of information that, in game-form, takes only a few minutes to plumb the depths of but in text form will take a little longer to portray...

Essentially, the classic PC action RPG/MMO interface is presented; you have an action bar at the bottom of the screen, a mini-map in the top right and can see your character from behind in a classic third-person viewpoint. The action bar at the bottom has three buttons already staked out on it - one pointing to the upper left, one pointing straight up and another pointing up-right. The scroll wheel allows you to zoom much further out, as well as all the way in to a first person view that is much less disconcerting than that presented in WoW, thanks to it being two or three virtual "feet" higher. Not that you're likely to play from there.

The top of the screen has another, more discreet set of actions. These game actions allow you to directly access your character screens, inventory and game controls, as well as a smaller set of buttons for the various social tasks (including managing a guild - something you can't do until you hit level 20). Each of these also have their own correlating action buttons, allowing you to pull them up with a keystroke if you desire. Your inventory initially consists of 24 slots for general use, as well as separate tabs for quest and "resource" items.

Quest NPCs (the first of which you will be pointed to after your opening dialogue with a friendly chap in the surf) are presented much as you'd expect, coming from WoW or even Diablo 2 or Titans Quest - an exclamation mark over their head says they've got something for you to do, whilst a question mark suggests they're waiting for you to return to them with a completed quest. Phew, that yellow exclamation mark cap I brought on the intertubes will not be resigned to the closet, should WoW suddenly fail.

Talking to an NPC introduces the player to branching quest text, a marked departure from the WoW model (more similar perhaps to that seen in the recent Mass Effect, or pretty much any adventure game - may that genre rest in peace). This branching system doesn't appear to have much effect, given that you can choose any path or even back away and begin again at the beginning as if nothing ever happened, but it's a nice extension to the interface. It gives the information in much easier to handle bite size chunks (rather than "wall of quest text crits you for 4,000, you die" as seen elsewhere) as well as giving those of us that like a little role play in our games an opportunity to express their character's take on things, even if the player themselves is the only person that will ever see it.

The next great development is seen in the minimap; quest objectives are indicated as a matter of course. Hovering over the little "go this way" arrow will even tell you why you're going there (i.e. "get to the boat"), allowing players that just want to get to max level so they can grind some noobs in a PvP battle an expedited way through the levelling part of the game. The presentation of this information on the map can only be described as excellent - it never once put us crook and at no time did we get lost in the intricate locales we were able to visit. Nice!

Questing soon leads to combat and... that will be covered in part 2! Stay tuned for more information on this epic game later this week.

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