X360: Age of Conan Progress Report

Adam Wolf

IGN

Age of Conan Progress Report
Crom! Hurry up and let us play this game or to hell with you!
by Dan Adams

December 14, 2006 - Yesterday it was announced that Microsoft had approved the 360 version of Age of Conan. That particular skew won't be out in 2007, but we figured we'd we might as well let you in on the fun. Below, you'll find a preview based on the most recent PC build. While the 360 version isn't ready to show at this point, Funcom reps did say that it was up and running back at their offices and even talking with the Xbox Live! servers at this point. We're not saying everything will be the same between the two versions but it's as good a place to start as any if you haven't heard about the game already. You can also find anymore information already released about the PC version on the Age of Conan PC page. We'll let you know when we hear more specifically about the 360 version.

Let's make things perfectly clear. Age of Conan is not for children. In fact, Crom may actually hate children, we're not sure. This is an M rated title for just about every descriptor in the ESRB rating system. Heads are cut off, drugs are taken, booze is consumed, and for all we know, dogs and cats are off in the bushes making babies. The Conan mythos is adult themed through and through. It's about an assault on the senses, wicked attention to pleasure seeking, and those who take pleasure in others pain. It's a brutal world to live in and we can't wait to be part of it all.


Gaute Godager and Jorgen Theraldson of Funcom came into town to show the game off at the Eidos offices this week so we had yet another opportunity to see some of the early game as well as get a chance to see how the game has changed since E3 2006. Much of what we were shown were things that were shown at that show, but the polish has definitely been applied at this point. You can get a look at it for yourself in the new video interview found in the video section which includes a bunch of new in-game footage.

The opening cutscene brings the player view flying over a slave ship at night. Not only does it offer the opportunity to show off the wonderful lighting and reflections on the water, but also sets the scene in the hard world of Hyboria quickly. The view moves down into the galley of the ship where players can then pick their characters. After gender and race have been selected, players can fiddle with the appearance sliders, which offer an incredible range to select from. The interface for it has been given an overhaul and now looks easy and fun to use. If you've played The Sims 2 and have created any of your own sims, you'll have a pretty good idea of how much choice players will have in their character creation. Along with facial features, hair, hair color, skin color, piercings and tattoos all help create distinguished looks.

As before, the game itself will begin with the slave ship crashing on one of the islands off of the mainland in the world of Hyboria. This island, home of the city of Tortage, is the starting point for players to learn more about the game mechanics and sink into the "single player" portion of the experience where the story will eventually lead players to meeting King Conan. Right off the bat, the game's presentation is shown to be different than many MMOs with a more cinematic approach to receiving quests as the camera moves around, cuts into letterbox, and offers dialog choices and camera angles similar to games like Knights of the Old Republic. They're hoping this will create a more appealing and exciting atmosphere which fits with the action combat style of play.

That action combat is quick to come. Combat is a much more interactive affair in Age of Conan than you normally see in MMOs. While much of the combat is still ruled by dice rolls the computer makes, players can effect combat by pulling off combos. When combat is entered, players will see a ring pop up at the bottom of the screen with three direction arrows. Players can attack in any of those three directions and pull off combos by following the highlighted directions in order. Once players get to higher levels, up to six direction pointers will be on the screen and more wicked combos become available including finishing moves that will gut, decapitate, and dismember enemies.

The result of the combat system is a much more action oriented style of play that looks exciting. It may not be as skill based as something like God of War quite yet, but it's a pretty good step in that direction. Especially since a sword will damage whatever targets it hits. So if there's two enemies standing in front of you and you slash at them and the sword passes through both models, they'll both lose a gallon of blood instead of the typical one vs. one combat style of most melee battles in MMOs to date that require special skills to make that happen.

Special skills are still required for magic. This was the first time we had a chance to see the magic system in action. Using some GM cheats they loaded up their character with all the trappings of a Herald of Zotli, which amounts to someone that uses demon magic. In fact, this class over time will begin to look more and more like the demons they take their magic from and summon. You can get a better look at some of the magic spells in the video interview on the media page, but there are already some effects in that use some geometry as well as the obligatory particle effects. Pillars sprout from the ground, fire arcs across the skies and all you would expect.

One of the interesting aspects of magic is its side effects. While there are beneficial magics for healing and whatnot, much of the magic in Conan's universe comes from dealing with demons and other dark ambitions. These dark spells will tag players with soul corruption every time they're used. Build up enough soul corruption and players will be sent to hell in a hand basket. Well, there's no hand basket, but death will find them having to fight their way out of hell to get back into Hyboria. Not a pleasant picture. Thankfully, there will be opportunities for players to absolve themselves to remove the soul corruption points.

Magic users will also have to be careful when putting together spell weaves, which is a system that allows players to add spells to a box and cast them in combinations. These spells offer up greater power, but if combined recklessly can backfire on the caster for severe damage or even death. These weaves are also more likely to add plenty of soul corruption points.

When the game begins for players, there won't be any magic, and the only weapon available is a wooden stick, but Game Director Gaute Godager cheated up some of the game's armor and weapons so that we could get a look at some of the designs. While most of the demo was on a TV unsuited to PC games, on a regular monitor, this game looks very good. The machine they were using was equipped with an early version of the 8800 so everything was running smoothly, which is especially impressive given how detailed the world is. Even the beginning area is lovely and lush. Water is reflective and allows for diffraction of objects underwater. Most importantly, the area looked natural, which many art designers have a hard time pulling off in gaming.

Even more impressive than the natural environment was the city of Tortage. It's easy to sit back and imagine the city as a real place. It's design is brilliantly haphazard in the way that towns grow into real habitable places. Houses are detailed and look lived in, town folks wander with a casualness going about their business, and the everyday accoutrements of daily life are strewn about. Most of the cities we've seen up to now have a pretty impressive center as well. Tortage's center tower is quite the spectacle and only the beginning considering this starting town is one of the smaller towns in the game. Once players get a glimpse of the gigantic city of Tarantia where Conan sits his kingly throne, they'll have a new appreciation for city design.

One of the cool things about these cities is that they're not only used as gathering places and markets but also have gameplay associated with them. One of the big hallmarks of Conan was that in his lifetime he was a jack of all trades and this included some choices that leaned towards the darker side. In fact, he started off as a regular thief. In that vein, players will be able to climb some of the buildings in the cities and sneak into windows to steal and assassinate characters for certain missions. Certain sections of Tarantia will even be reserved for PvP where players can battle it out in gang wars over control of the rougher area of town.

On the smaller side of things, there will also be camps scattered around the environment full of hostile NPCs. The cool thing about these camps is that they'll act like mini-towns. Some NPCs will patrol the area while others will take some time off to sit down and relax at the fire-pit and have a conversation or walk up to the water casks and get a refreshing sip of water. Even cooler is that NPCs will have different levels of senses during certain activities. So an NPC on patrol will have larger smelling and hearing radii and larger vision cones while the guy hanging out at the fire pit will be more relaxed and have much smaller sense areas. Sneaky players will even be able to sneak by enemies and poison the water supply. If patient enough, players can then wait for NPCs to dip their ladle in the water cask which will poison them and give them negative effects in the coming battle.

While adventures will mainly be single player in the early portion of the game (players will have their own adventure until they meet Conan and enter the MMO portion) there is a little bit of multiplayer here, though on a much smaller scale. Players can meet and head out for smaller adventures together to give a sense of how groups will work in the bigger MMO. Any time players want to get away from any other players in the early portion of the game, they can go to sleep and enter a night time single player version of the world as well. This won't be in the MMO game, but is a cool option to begin with.

Players will also be able to enter any tavern and do a little drunken brawling, which is one of the coolest and silliest ideas for fun PvP. Once in a tavern, players can purchase some alcohol, which will be the trigger for players to enter PvP mode. During a drunken brawling session, any level bonuses and skills are removed from the player's repertoire. Instead, player stats are tied to the type of alcohol consumed. For instance, different drinks like mead and rum might instill different stats for speed, power, and so on. Fight animations are wobbly and fun. Anyone that's poured back a drink or two is fair game while in the tavern so leave your inhibitions at the door and prepare for some good sized bar brawls.

What we saw definitely looked promising at this point, which is a good thing considering the game is quickly heading for a late spring or early summer release. They've been in closed beta for a while now and will soon be heading into open beta at the beginning 2007. We'll be sure to let you know what we think when we've had the chance to get into the beta ourselves. We're definitely looking forward to it.