Gen Con: Age of Conan Impressions

By Kevin & Rhonda Bender | August 29, 2007 | | Filed under: Features

Guest contributors Kevin Bender and Rhonda Bender attended Gen Con Indy this year and had the opportunity to have a first hand look at Funcom’s upcoming MMOG, Age of Conan. Hit jump and read their impressions and what they found out about the game by content designer Jason Allen Stone.

Eidos’ Age of Conan booth at Gen Con was shrouded in mystery. Red curtains encircled the booth, preventing random passersby from catching a glimpse of the secrets hidden within. Attractive young ladies in barbarian garb beckoned the curious to step inside for a look. Falling for their ploy, or perhaps just because we had an appointment, we stepped up to the entrance. We were immediately confronted by a guardian at the entry who demanded… to see our IDs before he would let us enter. (No one under was 18 admitted due to the M rating of the game).

Age of Conan, the upcoming MMOG from Eidos and developer Funcom, is based on the stories of Robert E. Howard about the barbarian king Conan. Howard’s grim but evocative stories are credited with creating the fantasy genre now known as ‘sword and sorcery’.

During our time at the booth, we were treated to a 20 minute hands on demo and a 40 minute discussion with Funcom content designer Jason Allen Stone. What we saw, and heard, during that hour inside their booth, was even more attractive than the ladies who were posing outside the booth, though it will take much more extensive play to fully judge the merits of this title.

The first thing on show in our brief play test was, of course, the graphics. The demo character’s hair swung back and forth and his bulging muscles gleamed as he jogged through a vibrant world alive with plants, animals and enemies. While some current generation games often look impressively realistic, their landscapes of brown and green and their subdued armor and clothing colorings can also look a little dull. The art direction of Age of Conan uses an ‘exaggerated realism’ model, sprinkling elements of more intense colour and more dramatic shadows and reflections into the world. It’s apparent there is still a little work to do on the graphics and animations, however – bunnies hopped, wolves loped and bears shambled quite convincingly, but birds skimmed the contours of the ground rather than flying in the air, and the legs of a cat spotted in one village moved in a blur like those of a centipede. Stone seemed confident that the game will look attractive on moderate systems, and mentioned occasionally playing it on a laptop himself.

We were not able to see character creation, but we were assured that characters will be extremely customizable. Players will be able to select from a variety of head and body templates, which can then be extensively tweaked. Only the male character was on view as the female player models are being reworked in an aim to strike the right balance between characters that look strong and heroic and are also attractive. Currently there are no plans for post-character creation appearance alterations, though it sounds as if it might be a possibility for the future.

Numerous character classes are available, encompassing four general archetypes – soldier, rogue, mage and priest. Soldiers and rogues are both combat characters, the difference is in how they learned their skills. Warriors trained as members of the military, and rogues through street fighting or hunting in the wild. At level 20, characters specialize into a class, such as guardian, conqueror or dark templar for soldiers, or ranger, assassin or barbarian for rogues. None of the four priest classes has any better healing abilities than any other, a decision calculated to prevent situations where groups prefer or demand certain types of healing characters. All healing abilities function over time, allowing the priest to alternate between triggering heals and participating in the battle. There are two regular character classes (and one elite class) with pets. Necromancers can select a number of pets of varying abilities up to a certain point cost, while demon summoners receive a single pet. Elite classes are available to all character classes at later levels of the game, and allow people to specialize their characters in crafting, player village management or group leadership.

Characters begin their journey as escaped slaves, and the first 20 levels of the game focus on establishing the story your character will follow for the rest of his career. This was originally intended as a solo-only section of the game, but based on player feedback an innovative way to move between solo and group play during these early levels was added – if you sleep in an inn you can switch between the two types of play. During the day you can play with others as you like and pursue side quests. At night, you can complete the solo storyline elements. After level 20 characters are transported to the home area for their respective races and begin the next stage of their adventures from there.

When we took control of the character, the amount of attention that’s been paid to development of the combat system in the game quickly became apparent. The developers consider action to be a key element of the Conan source material, and feel it is equally important that it be a significant and enjoyable part of the game. The combat system seems very tactical and took a short time to get familiar with, but was more engaging then the standard click and wait combat systems of some other MMORPGs. Targeting in combat is determined by the character’s facing, not by tab selecting or clicking on a target in combat. The character will aim for and strike enemies in a cone-shaped area in front of himself. This also allows the player to practice (or show off) combat attacks and skills without any target nearby.

Combat skills grant special combos, which are triggered by hitting one key and then continued or completed by hitting other keys in quick succession. The next key in the sequence is indicated on the UI, but the player only has a short time to complete the combination. Characters can also use directional attacks, which allow tactics such as aiming for the head of an opponent not wearing a helmet, though that move might be most effective if you first aim a few shots somewhere else and start him blocking another location. Players can direct the defensive stance of their characters, switching from an all around defense to concentrating blocking the center but leaving themselves open on the right and/or left. Counterattack openings are another combat complexity that demonstrates the emphasis on action.

In normal play a single character would be unlikely to survive against more than three opponents, but our demo character was set to very high health so we wouldn’t die while we chatted with the developer. The incidence of ‘fatalities’ was also ramped up a little at the time of our tour. Fatalities are like critical hits that have a percentage chance to trigger after use of a combo, and are accompanied by gouts of animated blood hitting the screen. Blood also gushes from opponents and heroes during regular combat in a way inspired by the movie 300. Players will be able to tone down the amount of blood, and it will also be toned down as part of the localization process for certain countries. Stone was pleased with how much the players at Gen Con seemed to enjoy combat, seeking out more and more opponents to beat down rather than viewing it as a grind. We think the combat looks very promising, but looking at it objectively, it usually takes longer than 15 or 20 minutes to tire of the combat in any game, so this is definitely an area that will require more play testing to judge.

With such a focus on combat, it comes as no surprise that Age of Conan will offer an array of PVP options. In addition to full PVP and possibly PVP RP servers, all servers offer three kinds of opt-in PVP. The first is drunken brawling, which sounds like a lot of fun. Characters must achieve a certain level of intoxication to brawl, and its fisticuffs only – regular character stats, level and equipment are unimportant; stats for drunken brawling are based purely on how drunk the character is. The next level up is more of a battlegrounds style PVP. In contrast to the way many games run arena combat, this is something players can organize on a chat channel while continuing their adventures in an area. Once all participants are ready to go, everyone is transported from their current location to the battleground, and then transported back when the fighting is done. Lastly, there are contested PVP areas that might offer superior resources like lumber mills or forts to groups who secure them. Characters can progress through 20 PVP levels which are independent of the main character levels.

As is traditional in both the MMORPG genre and the fantasy story genre, players receive quests and information from NPC characters. But even here Age of Conan offers a few twists. In keeping with the darker feel of the Conan stories, NPCs are realistically selfish, rarely offering to help characters for pure altruism alone. Dialogue with characters includes some branching tree options. While none of these selections will cut a player off from a quest, some choices will provide additional information that helps with completing the quest, or opens up secondary quests. Even mobs have their own agendas, including opinions of various classes of characters that might cause them to preferentially attack or avoid certain characters. As is common in current generation MMORPGs, some quests take place in static instances. Age of Conan will also have dynamic instances in the vein of some of the missions in Anarchy Online. Each region has a storyline that connects to the overall story running through the world. Stone says they have tried as much as possible to incorporate story elements and characters from the original Conan material.

One of the mid and late game elements of Age of Conan is the ability for player groups to create their own villages. These will not include individual player housing at release, although it is planned for the future. Player villages will be situated in neighborhoods with nearby villain hideouts. The players can choose to let the hideouts grow relatively unchecked, one day sprouting a unique boss villain the players can band together to defeat. Or they can police their neighborhood more strictly to keep the threat down to a nuisance level. Player villages will grant a variety of benefits, including direct access to the auction house. The plans for player villages are relatively untested at present, as the current focus is on testing the earlier levels of the game.

We had time for only a very brief overview of crafting, but it sounds like it ties into several areas of the game. Crafting professions include weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, architecture, engineering, alchemy and gem-cutting, which will allow crafters to set stones into items to grant them unique abilities. Stone assured me that crafted items are very viable and desirable in the game world. Another clever twist on the standard MMO model, was the idea of giving each character both PVP and PVE stats. This will allow players to customize their gear for different activities, but it will also preserve play balance. For example, it might allow a crafter to add a gem to an item that gives it great PVP abilities, but doesn’t make it overpowering to the PVE game. Stone said crafters will be the source for many of the best PVP items in the game.

One of the things we found most refreshing to hear was Funcom’s approach towards the casual gamer. Stone estimates that it will take around nine solid days (over 200 hours) to reach the maximum level of 80. The goal is for a person playing five or so hours a week to reach max level in well under a year. Constant and organized group play is not required to progress, and players can complete all levels solo or playing in small groups. Elements like allowing players to create battleground matches on the fly also contribute to the sense that this isn’t a game that just wants to waste as much of your time as possible to draw out the play experience. Funcom aims to keep high level characters involved in the game through activities like raids, player village management, and earning PVP and elite class levels. Raids will involve a maximum of 24 players. A maximum of six players can band together in a regular adventuring group.

If you’d heard anything about Age of Conan prior to reading this report, it was probably the fact that the game will sport the rare M for Mature ESRB rating when it ships. The decision to create an M rated game was not made simply to titillate with a little blood and sauciness, and they’re well aware that it’ll open the game up to attacks from groups and individuals who don’t accept that adults play games and want adult content in some of them. The M rating was acceptable to developers so they could tell stories that fit within the world of Conan, a world which includes prostitution, slavery and oppression, and a world with its share of violence and brutality. If Funcom stays on target, it should also be a world of savage beauty, adventuring and action, and one which brings some fresh ideas to the MMORPG community.