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Magic in the Hyborian World
Part Two of Two
To me, I can’t imagine how cool it will be to be
sent
straight to hell and have to fight my way back up again in order to
continue living. Jorgen was tight-lipped about the whole scenario.
“We’re not releasing any screenshots or much info
about that part of the game,” Jorgen said. “This is
one of those areas that we want to keep secret from the public. When
they experience hell for the first time, we want them to really feel
the emotion of the place.”
Even with the threat (or temptation) of hell set before them, many
characters will feel a draw to the spellcasters. These men and women
can summon demons, raise the dead, heal the living, and call thunder
from the sky. But do the spell effects live up to the threatening
menace of these characters?
While I didn’t see any spellcasters being played (Jorgen was
playing a Cimmerian melee-combatant), there were a few spellcasters
among the enemies he was fighting. Even though these mobs were very low
in level, there spells looked amazing and took full advantage of
DirectX 10. There weren’t many effects, so I can’t
report how they might look as a whole…but nothing in the
Conan game has been hard on the eye.
Finally, I put a question before Jorgen that had been burning in my
mind: Would spellcasters get the same sort of bonuses from a formation
that melee combatants would logically receive.
The answer was a resounding yes.
“These formation are not just for squad warfare on the PvP
battlefield and therefore are not simply for melee-based
combatants,” Jorgen said. “Characters in formation
might receive stat buffs and using formations in PvE dungeons is almost
essential. You want your casters in the back of the pack,
yes?”
I agreed with that logic and tied that to another question.
“The press has seen a lot of content and video focusing on
the cool animations and highly active melee combat you’ve
programmed into the game,” I said. “Will magic and
ranged combatants have the same sort of active play style and
accessible action that the sword-swingers will?”
“Of course,” Jorgen said. “The ranged
combat will function similar to an FPS in style, with a need to
point-and-click at their targets in order to hit them. Magic users will
need to think tactically as well…do they need to weave these
spells together for the extra damage/healing, or will that backfire and
end up hurting them in the end? It’s certainly not a
click-and-wait approach.”
While magic is a necessary part of the Conan world, melee combat is
almost essential. Continue reading to see what Funcom has in store for
the melee combatant.
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