First Look: Age of Conan

How do the first few levels of the latest blockbuster MMO stand up? David Hollingworth dons a loin cloth to find out.

It’s common thought these days that the first few days of an MMO launch can make or break a game’s success. Sure, a buggy launch won’t necessarily kill a title, but in an age where forums can overload with bad reviews within minutes of a game server going live, the last thing any developer wants is trouble from the get go.

With that in mind, we thought it might be useful to post a few initial thoughts of Age of Conan – and we’ll endeavour to do this all future MMO launches.

So far, it’s only those who lucked into their pre-release ‘early play’ keys that can access the game (and more on those later), but already server pops across the board seem pretty healthy. Funcom’s certainly shipping a metric butt-tonne of games to stores in anticipation of healthy sales, and pre-order situation seems to suggest they’re on to something.

Like many MMOs, getting the game up and running be a chore, and already there are a mess of patches to get the out-of-the-box (or fresh-from-the-net) client up to date. Once those patches are installed – about a GB-worth so far – you can fire up the game, gawk at some breasts in the opening cinematic (this is a Conan game, after all), and get down to the always intriguing task of creating your alternate you.

The reigning champ of avatar customisation, City of Villains, doesn’t have anything to worry about just yet, but Age of Conan offers easily one of the more robust creation schemes we’ve yet seen. Everything from eyebrow width down to butt-size can be tweaked to your heart’s (or other bodily region’s… ) content, and there’s even a range of tattoos to pick from that offer a hint to whatever heroic back-story you might have dreamt up for your character.

Speaking of which, RP whores (like me –ed) will be happy to know that an RP server is available alongside the more usual PVE and PVP servers.

So, after deciding to go with a dusky-hued Stygian Assassin with lovely set of hips, we launched into the game.

Starting areas can be a tough thing to make work smoothly at the best of times – they need to be fun enough to keep you interested, but simple and easy enough to teach you the game’s fundamentals at an easy pace. At launch, this is often exacerbated by having dozens, sometimes hundreds of players contesting the same scant resources – World of Warcraft comes to mind. But thanks to heavily instanced nature of the AoC gameworld you begin the game alone, washed up from a shipwreck, with the initial bits of the world to yourself.

It’s a blessing, but it immediately lacks that usual frenetic feel of a launch for at least the first four or so levels. Your first mission is to rescue a female slave from bloodthirsty raiders, then escort her through a pirate and pict-filled jungle. It’s easy fare, and gives you ample opportunity to not only discard your skimpy slave clothes, but also learn the ins and outs of AoC’s take on MMO combat.

You have, on top of the usual special attacks, three basic directional attacks – an overhead swing, and a left and right cut. These correspond to the ways in which NPCs – and other players in PVP – defend themselves, and makes combat feel more akin to an action game than a traditional, button mashing MMO. Some of your special moves, or combos, also require a directional keystroke to go off, so you need to pay attention to a lot in combat. It’s a unique system, and combined with the Schwarzenneger-level of blood splatter, really brings home the gritty nature of AoC’s world.

The first few levels also introduce players to what seems, at first, a rudimentary skill system, whereby each level up gives you points to sink into general and class-specific skills. At later levels, you’ll also open up talent trees to further specialise your toon, but to begin with, it’s pretty basic.

So far, we’re reserving judgement on the game. For one thing, we’re only a few levels into the game, and haven’t even left the instanced noob area yet. One thing we can say is that, compared to the beta – which some of you may have been playing – the final version of the game is running much smoother. The frame rate is definitely far more solid, and the game world seems slightly less plastic. It’s still not up there with Lord of the Rings Online for sheer graphical splendour just yet, but it’s a vast improvement over the choppy performance of week’s just past.

Tune in for more reports tomorrow, plus some in-game pics, when hopefully we can get a few more hours under out belt despite tonight’s State of Origin, and the ensuing beers. Go the Blues!


And what happened after the Blues trounced the Maroons? More Age of Conan! Read part two.