When Age of Conan was first released I avoided it like the plague. I did this not because of the hefty price tag or the monthly subscription, nor the gigantic download or the fear of it being a bad game – I did it because I was scared of losing another 4 years of my life to a great MMO. You would need to have been living in a different solar system to avoid the hype of Age of Conan, and after hearing about the new combat system and amazing graphics I feared another WoW.
But alas, a few short months down the track and the temptation was too much to resist. I decided that it was time to put the fear of MMO Addiction behind me, and take a chance with a game that clearly deserves my attention. Thus it saddens me to say that the next few days of my life weren’t at all what I had expected. Upon purchasing AoC, waiting several hours for the installation (a whopping 24GB) and several more for the extra 2GB of patches I soon found that I had grossly underestimated the system requirements and had a tough time getting it to run properly.
It's true that my laptop only just meets the minimum requirements of the game, but the first time I started playing I could only see water and body tattoos. I knew after spending a few minutes roaming the endless water as a pair of floating tattoos that this was not how the game was supposed to be played, and began writing an email to Funcom Technical Support. Fortunately the support I received was nothing short of fantastic, and after a few updated drivers and Windows improvements and I was finally playing AoC properly, and loving every second of it. It seems that my poor little laptop won't ever be running AoC well, it's choppy and horrible at even at the best of times and my frame-rate is lucky to see 11FPS, but with the highly customisable settings turned down to their lowest I was at least able to play.
All washed up
In true Conan style, AoC begins by allowing players to choose a character from a group of slaves on a cargo ship. The character creation is second to none in the MMO genre, with 3 Races and 12 Classes in total. Although the Races are all variations of Human, they are very different from each other – with the Cimmerians of the North being able to select from the Barbaric Classes such as the Guardians, the Proud Aquilonians having access to shamans and priests, and the dark-skinned Stygians looking after the spell-caster types. The available classes are placed nicely through the races, and I doubt that many people would feel cheated when matching their race with their class.
After deciding on your lineage, you will be able to mould your appearance like never before – everything from eyebrows to cheekbones, and jaw lines to body size. Once you’ve finished, the journey begins.
By some miracle the slave vessel you were being transported in is destroyed, and you awaken on sandy island shores. A strange man stands before you, time has not been kind to him, and whilst you indulge in the fully voiced and cinematic cut scene you soon learn that your life of freedom is doomed to end almost as quickly as it had begun. The Slave Master aboard the vessel you were being transported on is already on his way to town, and once he arrives he will alert the guard of the incident, branding you as a slave – and as slaves are not allowed the privilege of freedom you would be dead before nightfall.
You'll realise quite quickly that Age of Conan will be offering you an experience unlike any you've ever seen before. It feels almost like a single-player game the likes of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion with cut scenes and voice acting present throughout. Also adding to the single-player feel is that until you first reach the city of Tortage, you will be in an instance (a section of the game separated by all other players). This helps to tell the story and create a sense of immersion like none other, and is a tactic used throughout the game. Once you have reached Tortage you will join an instance will all other players on the Island, but not those in the rest of the world. Throughout the first 20 levels of the game you will drop in and out of this instance to complete various quests in single-player mode, many of which will be specific to the class you selected back on the boat.
Something of special mention here is that the storyline present throughout your travels on Tortage is different depending on the class you have selected - that is to say that you will be completing different parts of it. The same storyline will be active no matter your class, but your role in it will differ greatly depending on your initial choices in the game. As an Assassin I was tasked at one point to steal a magical scroll from a witch who would use it to harm the city, and replace the scroll with another of my own. However when watching a friend of mine who had chosen the path of the Demonologist complete the same quest, he was instead tasked with befriending the same witch, and corrupting her plans through other means. This same style was present for the remainder of my time on Tortage, and was a welcome addition indeed.
Exploring Hyboria
Once you reach level 20, your time in Tortage will come to an end. By now you’ll have all the knowledge you need to make it in the real world, and trust me when I say that you’ll need it, as Hyboria is a one of a kind place.
The locations that you'll be exploring are truly amazing. Vast deserts, gorgeous mountains, and ruined cities are but some of places you'll visit in your travels throughout Hyboria. The graphics, sound, and scenery are better than any I've even seen in an MMO – but they come at a price. The System Requirements in AoC are also higher than any other MMO, and without a computer of notable value you, like me, will be experiencing something different altogether. It still looks beautiful – but it's faded and choppy, and most of the textures take several seconds to properly load. Luckily, it's not only the graphics and sound in AoC that create such brilliant immersion, but also the atmosphere. Towns are filled of people and taverns of drunkard locals, and quests litter every corner of the land. Be wary though, AoC is a game meant for mature audiences, with naked women and vulgar language a plenty.
The quests in AoC are superb, as all of them have significant meaning. Speaking with a quest-giver will cause the camera to zoom in towards their face, and a small cutscene-type process will begin. You won’t be finding any boxes of text here; instead the information is displayed at the bottom of the screen as are you’re choices in the conversation. You’ll be given several choices of what to say in most conversations and all of them will determine the outcome. All of the quests contributing to the main story are fully voice acted, and Funcom are hard at work adding voice to the rest.
The quests themselves are where the meat is though, as I’ve yet to find a single quest that didn’t have me doing something of actual importance. Most MMOs have standard quests, asking you to collect boar teeth or something equally trivial, but AoC will have you slaying demons, unraveling mysteries and even assassinating people whilst they sleep.
Something else that you may find a little different to begin with is that all of the towns and surrounding areas are actually instances of their own. Unlike traditional MMOs where the world is seamless, every different part of Hyboria is separate to the next, and is available in either Normal or Heroic Mode. It takes a bit of getting used to when you begin, but works really well and allows for some great new additions to the genre – such as the ability to change which instance you are in, but remain in the same zone. This is specially handy when you’re looking to escape a PvP Happy player or trash talk.
Vanquish thy enemy… now with player input!
Putting aside for a moment the unique style that AoC displays with storytelling and instanced questing, another of the truly innovative features provided is the combat. Opposed to the standard auto-attack feature found in most other MMOs AoC will have you pressing a separate key for each individual attack, beginning with Left, Right, and Forward – and adding Lower Left and Lower Right later in the game. This is then combined with the use of combos, requiring you to first press the key assigned to the skill you would like to use, and then pressing a combination of keys in order to execute the attack. For example, using the skill Vicious Strike might require me to press my assigned key 5, followed by 1 and 3, in which I have assigned to Left and Right Attack. This simple addition to the game adds incredible depth not only to questing, but to PvP and raiding too. One wrong key-press can mean the difference between life and death, adding loads of excitement to the somewhat boring and overused combat style presented in most other MMOs.
Another of the features that helps to make the combat in AoC more interesting is that all of the standard attacks and combos are AoE (Area of Effect) enabled, meaning that even the standard slices of your sword or axe will hit all of the enemies in front of you. This not only helps add the immersion, but it also makes multi-mob combat far easier to manage. It's also possible to perform a fatality, killing your opponent in a vulgar manner, and awarding you with a buff for the next few seconds. Although I'm not exactly sure what causes these fatalities to happen, they are a welcome addition as the animations are superb – as an assassin my fatality would usually consist of me stabbing my daggers into an enemies neck, then ripping them out viciously causing a spray of blood to litter the surrounding walls (did I mention this game was for mature audiences?). Equally awesome was watching my friend, a Demonologist burn his victims alive with a fire spell. When a fatality had activated they would run around, wreathed in flame for a moment, before clutching their throats and falling to the ground as a charred corpse. It's only a small addition, but it adds much to the immersion.
There will be blood... most of it yours.
Whilst the PvP system in Age of Conan does have some new additions that mix it up, there really isn’t that much to say. If you choose to play on a PvP server then you’ll most likely spend most of you’re time playing running away or hiding from the higher level players that find it endlessly entertaining to gank you into oblivion. This slows down quite a lot once you reach the higher levels, and with guilds being able to built cities and wage war on each other it does get more interesting, but for the most part it’s been done before, and it’s most definitely not a stand-out feature in AoC.
The most notable difference that I could find was that all players have the ability to stealth. It AoC it’s referred to as Hiding, and can be done simply by pressing H. However unless you’re an assassin you be spotted quite easily, and if you move your stamina will be quickly drained. But combine this with the unique combat style and instance zones and it makes for some very fun battles, and for the most part I was happy I chose to play on a PvP server.
Not without flaw
What Age of Conan does right, it does better than ever before. There are however some lingering issues that hinder its success. Mainly, this comes down to the enormous difference between Tortage and the rest of the world. Tortage is hugely polished, with voice acting present in every quest, plenty of players running around the island, memorable characters throughout the towns and meaningful quests that won’t soon be forgotten. Unfortunately, this makes it painfully obvious that the rest of the game has received far less attention and by level 25 you start to realise that you’re still playing the same MMO as you have the last few years, with prettier scenery and an improved combat system. But until we get a developer that is actually willing to push the MMO envelope and try some really new ideas then this is most likely as good as it’s going to get.
