Five years ago Funcom set out with an idea in mind. That idea evolved into Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures (AoC). One of the hottest and most highly anticipated MMORPGs of the last several years. It's been a long road, but launch has come and it was well worth the wait.

I was fortunate enough to take part in the closed beta process for AoC. In that time I got to watch the game grow from its early conception to the beautiful world it is today. Many people don't realize how much a game changes during beta. Hence you have your flamers and ranters that spill out onto the boards who are in beta claiming the game is bad or such other nonsense. Guess what genius. It wasn't finished, but now it is and it is a completely different experience. Let's take a look at what this game has to offer.

Graphics

The graphics of Age of Conan got a lot of polish during beta. The game has evolved to a level of beauty Funcom promised early on and in my opinion exceeded it. To give you an example of what kind of changes graphically AoC went through from beta to live, examine these two pictures of Casilda. One comes from an earlier phase in beta and the other from a couple of weeks later and both are on the same settings from my computer. This goes back to one thing I have always said and to quote myself, "A lot can change in a single patch." You can see how greatly the graphics improved over that short period of time. Not just for Casilda, but the world as a whole. Funcom did an excellent job in creating a very immersive look. It is easy to walk into Hyboria and do nothing but just stare at the graphically beautiful landscape.

Sound

One thing I give Vanguard Saga of Heroes credit for was having a great music and ambient sound setup. They did an excellent job and at the time, perhaps one of the best of any MMORPG, but AoC has taken it up a level. The sound is some of the best you will experience in any game and arguably the best of any MMORPG on the market. The environmental, ambient, combat, and the music all make the game very immersive and give it a truly epic feel. It is superbly done. It is perhaps one of my favorite aspects of the game and Knut Avenstroup Haugen really did an excellent job with the music. If you aren't to familiar with Knut be sure to check out his interview with Ten Ton Hammer here.

Combat

By now everyone is pretty familiar with what AoC offers in the form of combat. If not have a look at this Combat Training Tutorial created by Funcom. Melee combat is more hands on and puts you in a more controlling role when it comes to combat. Your enemy constantly changes his defenses and forces you to adapt. When an enemy shifts their shielding your attacks do far less damage on that area. Changing your focus to a less protected area deals greater damage. This makes combat very active and a lot more involving than most other MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Everquest.

Ranged combat didn't get ignored either. Players can choose to fire in first or third person mode. Both with their advantages and disadvantages, but it too is more involving than traditional archery roles of older games. Like melee, you will need to focus your shots where they will be most effective.

Casters work similar to their more traditional counterparts. Though with spell weaving they have an aspect not seen in traditional MMORPGs and this adds a nice layer to their combat roles making them very useful and very lethal.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 136px; height: 100px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/33975"
title="Title of Your Image"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/33975" alt="Tanks" height="480"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 150px; height: 113px;" />

AoC is a dark world full of untold dangers.

The last aspect of combat that makes for a nice layer is without a doubt the fatality system. There are a wide variety of fatalities that each class can perform. To give you an example here is what I have seen on my guardian alone. Decapitation, impaling an enemy, lifting them up, and then dropping them, disembowelment, chopping off a foes arm and then stabbing them in the throat and twisting the blade. There are many more but that just gives you an idea, and some insight into how sick my mind really is. This does make combat interesting and they trigger from successful combos and the element of randomness.

Player vs Player (PvP)

Lovers of PvP will enjoy AoC be it on a PvP server or a Player vs Environment (PvE) server. The active combat certainly puts players in a position where skill will play an important part in achieving victory. AoC provides many options for PvP ranging from the Free for All (FFA) PvP server, PvP Mini Games such as Capture the Flag and Annihilation, and large scale siege and keep PvP where players can build a keep t defend and others will lay siege to it. This is also one of the huge selling points for AoC and many players are anxious to join the PvP in the Border Kingdoms. If you need more convincing, take a look at this Ten Ton Hammer video on raid and sieging from the Oslo launch event for Age of Conan here. Nothing more needs to be said.

Player Cities

Players will also be able to construct player cities after meeting a certain level of requirements. Some of those are having a guild with at least 23 members and a level 40 capable of claiming a building space. Player cities will also require several members from crafting professions to aid in its construction. This is perhaps one of THE BEST guild features ever put into an MMORPG. Even now my guild is working their way up to achieve this goal and once completed it will make an excellent place for players to congregate and even have role-play events if your into it. Either way this is one aspect that many people and guilds are anxious to dive into. If you need more convicing just check out this video we scored from Funcom on city building here.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; width: 136px; height: 100px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/33976"
title="Title of Your Image"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/33976" alt="Tanks" height="480"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 150px; height: 113px;" />

To the victor go the spoils. To the loser goes a lesson in pain.

Tradeskills

Players can take up one of the many tradeskills in AoC once they reach level 40. Crafters will be an important part of the world as only they can construct certain items, siege weaponry, and make the necessary items needed to construct player cities and battle keeps for the Border kingdoms. You can also sneak a preview in this crafting demo video.

Performance

The performance during the launch of AoC was outstanding. I expected it to be much worse than it was as most games launch with some lag issues, but AoC ran well and I was able to get a lot of play time in with many friends and we were all impressed by the stability. Only on a few rare cases did I notice performance issues, but they didn't last too long at all. We did have to have a little downtime for patches and fixes, but the overall time wasn't all that bad. It certainly could have been worse and was not as bad as most launch downtimes.

Cons

I don't want to sound like a fanboi so let me point out some of the negatives.

• User Interface (UI) - The user interface is a bit bare. It doesn't provide enough customization options. The inability to change text colors without editing a file in the AoC folder is a bit of a hassle. More options would be a nice addition. While it is a bit bare, the UI is not at all game breaking, but more options is something I think the community as a whole would agree it would be nice to have.
• Voice Over's - Once you exit Tortage the NPC voice over's are not as plentiful. Often times you will have to resort to reading the text. Not that that is game breaking, but it would be nice to have more voice over's. I am one of those people that gets tired from reading so the voice over's make a nice feature for me. I expect these are likely coming in a future patch, but for now we'll have to make do with good old reading.
• Death Penalty - The death penalty is pretty light. I have found a lot of people who tend to use dying as a form of fast travel. Unless you die multiple times the penalty isn't too much to fear. At level 30 my penalty for dying with my guardian was a debuff of -2 attack rating for 30 minutes. You can of course retrieve the stone to erase the penalty, but over all a single death isn't that much to worry about.
• No Roleplay PvE Server - This was one option that actually didn't make it into launch surprisingly. Especially giving the vast popularity of RP PvE servers in other games. Many of which support multiple ones. For some reason Funcom decided not to have a RP based PvE server which prompted the community to form an unofficial one on Wiccana.

Summary

Age of Conan will offer a great home to MMORPG vets and newcomers alike. With a great combat system along with an assortment of fatalities, players will find many hours of great fun hacking off their opponents limbs, but this great combat system isn't all the game has to offer. It also brings to the table one of the most beautiful MMORPG worlds to date, a living breathing world, a great sound system, and many things for players to do and engage in.

We all know what AoC offers and launch has been a pretty smooth one. There have been a few bumps in the road, but overall Funcom has had a great launch compared to most other MMORPGs. Many people like myself were part of the early beta, and got to watch the idea become a reality. We have seen the game grow and evolve. Some things were cut and others changed, but the end product is one that Funcom can be proud of and one that I and many others will enjoy for years to come.

---

• That's my thoughts let's hear yours here.