Do You Want to Live Forever?

by Phil "Ralphedelominius" Comeau

Age of Conan was at the Leipzig Game Convention in force, and Ten Ton Hammer was once again on hand to see another thrilling gameplay demonstration in the Eidos booth; a quiet bit of isolation in the GC Business Hall away from the throngs of screaming gamers and body-painted booth babes. Product Manager Erling Ellingsen and Product Director Jørgen Tharaldsen were in the house to run us through the latest build of the game, including some never-before-seen information and gameplay relating to Siege Warfare.

To recap what Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is all about:

"The core experience in Age of Conan is a social gaming combat experience." It is soloable all the way to level 80, but you will naturally progress further if you group. The game departs from the typical combat system employed by comtemporary MMOs, where you "watch combat unfold like a whack-a-mole game," as Jørgen [Tharaldsen] describes it. It takes inspiration from fighting games like Street Fighter, Tekken and Soul Caliber where melee classes, like Age's Barbarian, can execute combat maneuvres through various key combinations - no 'auto attack' here! As described in our pre-E3 Preview of Age of Conan, a combat 'wheel' in the UI shows the different directions you can swing your weapon. If you make the proper attack combination at the right time, you have a chance of being rewarded with one of those signature decapitation moves or limb-hacking scenes that have us all drooling at the prospect of playing Age of Conan. "It's like the finishing moves in Mortal Combat. This is one of the reasons why the game is rated M for Mature. We have not dumbed down the game to get a Teen rating; this is a game for grown-ups," says Tharaldsen.

You can get more background information on Age of Conan from our Pre-E3 preview mentioned above, and our E3 article on the game from which that quote is taken.

Erling was quick to mention right away that this game remains true to the world of Robert E. Howard in all respects. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is "no so much about elves and wizards in pointy pink hats, it's more about prostitutes and barbarians" said Erling. Jørgen was also quick to point out on the demo screen, "See my pet? She's naked!" Truly, anything less would be an affront to the rich tapestry that Howard created all those years ago, and endures still!

Erling and Jørgen each took characters into the demo area, Ellingsen with a Barbarian and Tharaldsen with the Demonologist. The first fight of the day was against Excorant the Gargoyle Master, in a Stygian dungeon amongst the forces of the Black Ring. Excorant has the ability to animate the many large statues that adorn the rooms and halls of this dungeon, making him a potent foe, indeed. Killing Excorant is only the first step, however, as his death spawns a large demon that's a handful in his own right.

The combat system remains as shown previously, an interactive system that allows you to put together custom moves and attacks using the multi-directional combat wheel. Certain combinations of moves have the potential to result in awesome finishing moves, like limb-chopping hacks and decapitating swings of the sword.

The second fight was versus one of the game's boss mobs, Yaremka the Soul Eater. This bad boy packs a wallop, throwing out massive amounts of Area of Effect (AoE) damage with each swing. The sheer size of this guy is amazing, set against the detailed background of the dungeon walls... everything has such grandeur to it, it's almost beyond words to explain.

Now for the exciting new stuff! Jørgen was quick to point out that the code isn't totally stable yet, but they were stoked to show us the first glimpse at Player versus Player (PvP) Siege Warfare. In this area of the game, player guilds will be able to construct settlements using a variety of harvested resources, and fight it out amongst other players and guilds for supremacy. We saw a large keep structure, with a surrounding wall, that Erling and Jørgen were assaulting using an army of about 200 game-generated NPCs. Some of them were seated upon what we will eventually see as player mounts - a mammoth, and a sweet-looking rhinoceros!

Keeps that can be built can also be destroyed, naturally. Erling took control of the infantry, while Jørgen manned the controls of the siege weapons. As your forces assault the enemy, you will be able to fire artillery into the fray that you build before the attack - it looks like trebuchets can inflict some great damage on fortifications as well as defenders. There will be no 'friendly fire' damage, however - they've determined that going that far with realism was unbalancing ("We have to balance *everything*," says Tharaldsen. "It's spreadsheets from here to Hell!"), so feel free to drop flaming balls of pitch right on top of the general melee! For demonstration purposes, the damage was artificially increased - these battles will be epic in scope and will take a goodly amount of time (hours) to execute properly.

Players will have to create their formations, build and emplace siege weapons, and take down the defender's walls to gain access to their inner keep. There will be 20 levels of PvP action for players to explore.

Would you like to learn more? Following our sit-down demo, we got some more quality time with Jørgen Tharaldsen and Erling Ellingsen in the form of a video interview, where the guys discuss further the intricacies of PvP warfare. Watch the video and find out!!!


Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures news and features!

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Age of Conan: Unchained Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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