The Art of Recreating an
Epic

Quests, Gameplay, and the
History of a Legend


By Cody “Micajah” Bye

March 13, 2007

Funcom, as they have told many publications in the past, is a
story-driven company; all of their games are focused upon the story of
the characters inside. That being said, it’s clearly evident
that Age of Conan is going to have thoroughly integrated story elements
in the actual gameplay.

Thor pointed out that each of the quests that were available were tied
into other quests. “Each of the quests in this region, and in
all the regions in the game, will be tied into other quests. We are a
story driven game but we want there to be interconnectivity within the
world that the players exist in.”

While the quests were really well done, I was interested in how much of
the lore was actually used to create the game. Howard’s
books, of course, were on the list, but other authors like Robert
Jordan and the Marvel comic book series all took different spins on the
raging barbarian. “We have 12 people working on the quests
full-time,” Jorgen answered, “and I know that at
least the keep lore people have read every book. Each book they go
through, they look at the elements inside the novel and select things
that they may or may not use.”

“If you’ve read any of the new Penguin books or
Dark Horse comics, you’ll actually be able to meet up with
the individuals you see from the comics,” he continued.

Thor continued that train of thought. “Yeah, there are
certain areas where you’ll pick up a quest and go,
‘I recognize this area!’, because you’ve
seen it in the comics.”

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Story and environment are crucial
to the success of AoC.

As we explored one of the Stygian lands, both developers made a note
that this area alone had approximately 100-110 hours of gameplay in it,
and was the level 20-40 area for Stygians. “And all the other
races have similar situations; where they’ll have a hundred
or so hours of gameplay available to them in their various areas. The
characters don’t have to travel before level 40 if they
don’t want to, allowing each race to have different initial
experiences beyond the typical grind.”

 While quests and story may be all well and good, many of us
in the room were worried about our power-leveling friends who would
stop at nothing to reach max level. “We’ve been
working on a master and apprentice system for Age of Conan that will
allow you to play with your friends no matter the level. We also have
the PvP system, which works on tiers rather than standard levels so you
will still be able to play with your friend even if you don’t
have as much time.”

In the end, Funcom is devoted to making Age of Conan as close to the
history that Howard devised as possible. They want to create a dark,
gritty, nasty world where men and women both struggle to stay alive. I
believe these things will be apparent the first time any new Conan user
starts up his client and begins the long trek down his
“journey into darkness.”


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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