Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
June 2,2008 - To say that the Massively Multiplayer Genre on the PC is crowded would be a monumental understatement. There are dozens of active MMOs online right now, and even more that have come and gone. Mostly the market has worked via a two-tiered system. There has been World of Warcraft up on a high perch, and then there’s been everything else fighting for scraps.

To enter into this sort of a market, a new MMO has to have something unique going for it. Funcom’s Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures sets itself apart by abandoning the clean High-Fantasy clichés of other MMO’s and planting itself firmly in the brutal and decadent Hyborian Age created by Robert E. Howard. It’s a world where sex and violence are as much a part of life as eating and sleeping.

The game starts off with King Conan being briefed on the situation unfolding across his lands. He’s facing adversaries from all sides. Cimmerians aren’t known for backing down from a fight, and so the King calls out for every warrior able to wield a weapon to join in the fight. One might expect that the character you create following this brief introductory sequence would be one of those warriors. That isn’t the case though.

Your character begins as a galley slave, washed up on a beach on the Island of Tortage. This island serves as the game’s basic tutorial area. The quests you’ll take here will not only serve to reveal bits of the unfolding story, but also introduce you to the skills you’ll need to survive on the mainland.

At the beginning of the game you’ll have the choice of twelve character professions divided up among the game’s three races: Aquilonian, Cimmerian, and Stygian. The professions are divided into four basic classes, Soldier, Priest, Rogue, and Mage. All three races have their Rogues and Priests, but only the Stygians have Magic users. Conversely, only Cimmerians and Aquilonians have a Soldier class.

One thing that’s interesting to note is the placement of the Barbarian class. Barbarians are considered Rogues in Age of Conan, so while they are formidable fighters and can wield just about any weapon type, they don’t use heavy armor, and consequently can’t take the same kind of damage as the Soldier class. Funcom has pulled off a very difficult feat with Age of Conan: they’ve managed to make every character profession viable and fun. None of the professions feel as if they have any significant drawbacks that would make them not worth playing.

The way you progress in Age of Conan is similar to that of other MMO’s. You’ll complete quests and kill monsters to earn experience and items to apply to your character. Age of Conan uses a day and night cycle which serves as a way of splitting up the multiplayer zones that take place during the day from the single player Destiny Quests which take place at night.

The first twenty levels are spent on the Island of Tortage. Upon reaching level twenty and making it to the mainland, you’ll be able to start taking part in Guilds. Guilds are about Community. Once your Guild has enough members, they can start building a town. It’s nice that a feature that is based around Community, actually allows you to literally build one.

At level forty the game’s Crafting system and character mounts become available. This tiered system means you’ll have to work your way up to a specific level before you can start crafting items for yourself and other people, but it also means that by the time you do you’ll already be halfway to the game’s level cap of eighty, so by that point, you just might continue on and do something other than sitting in town crafting items.

One of the main focal points of Age of Conan is the combat system. It’s not the drab target-an-enemy-attack-and-wait-for-baddie-to-die-then-repeat sort of system. Combat is, thankfully, much more involved than that. Your character has the ability to attack from many different directions. Spotting where your opponent is open and coming in from that angle is the key to doing big damage. In this way, the combat system is a little like a fighting game - hell, it even counts combos.

Another nice touch is how the game’s spells work. Rather than being target or area specific, spells are based on a cone of vision. This is rather nice for healers since they now no longer have to try to pick out allies from a big melee. They can just face the direction of their allies, and as long as they’re in sight, they’ll get the spell’s effects. The same is true for offensive spells. It’s a system that works very well, and is a lot more approachable than systems used in other MMO’s.

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