It's been awhile since MMORPG.com's Phil James has visited Age of Conan. Phil's been spending time on the lush tropical island of Tortage but it's not all frothy drinks and bikinis. Phil's got the full report in his Age of Conan: Return to Hyboria Part 1. Get the details on what Phil has found and then leave us a couple of comments.

And now a word on breasts. Yes, you might have heard that this game has them, and you have heard right, it does. You can create a character that has them, you can strip off and look at them. In fact you can do a lot with them besides touch them – you can even do that if you like but they just feel like glass or plastic depending on your screen. I opted for a male character, figuring that I’m married and I also have the internet, therefore I have all the access to boobs that I need.

Read Phil James' Age of Conan: Return to Hyboria Part 1.

AoC is a great PvE game for a game that was supposed to be a great PvP game. It's still one of my favorite games to return to when I feel like a little bit of PvE. Unfortunately every return keeps me for only 1-2 months and I move on again. The graphics are great, but the sound is the best I've heard in any MMO. Hopefully the movie release will see a return of players for simple curiostiy reasons. With a population spike, it may be worthwhile to re-sub longer then 1-2 months as most areas are ghost towns. 

It is definately a beautiful game and I agree with the starter tutorial as you mention it. The thing that burnt me was after you leave that wonderful place where the quest people speak to you with much verve and facial expression, you then have to read walls of dialogue that the quest givers spew forth.

Did all of the intellegent NPCs life only in Tortage? Are all the other NPCs simply mute but love to write ? :)

At any rate I am sure you will touch on that later. Nice writing by the way, I was a bit dissapointed when I saw Mr Tingle wasnt doing this write up .. but after reading yours i am no longer.

Was this for xbox becouse its right by the descktop logo?

  Since I just learned they have an unlimited trial,which is a good idea imo, I finally decided to jumpin and give it a try. I have resisted doing so for 3 years  but now I feel the game and I are "both" ready,lol.

  I am romping about in Tortage of course though I don't have my slave-chains off yet so cant enter but so far,so good. A couple weeks from now I will have time to delve deeper into Conan's world which I am looking forward to as I love good pve. I am looking forward to reading the rest of your review as it becomes available. Great timing :)

Originally posted by Soldier101

Was this for xbox becouse its right by the descktop logo?

 

it was going to be, but then Microsoft got out of MMOs.

I came back to the in the summer last year and its got so much better.. then with the exp pack they added even more.

IM not playing at the moment as i have gone back to darkfall for some real pvp but i see they have just released a graphics update for AOC and im so tempted to go back and check it out the vids and screenshots now look even more amazing then before :)

No one can have enough access to boobs. I can't believe you just wrote that. This isn't Cosmopolitan, Glamour or Redbook. Mostly males are reading this. Who are you BSing? Just be honest with us. Your wife would give you hell if she caught you staring at the rather large breast in AoC.

fantastic game..dont care what anyone says,been subbing for 3 yrs now..£68 a year,absolute bargain.

As someone advised i checked out the latest developments and i agree, its worth playing and a great game. Even comboskipping is realy hard now, i once masterd it but with the new pace of combat in place its almost undoable.

Originally posted by Jesterftk

As someone advised i checked out the latest developments and i agree, its worth playing and a great game. Even comboskipping is realy hard now, i once masterd it but with the new pace of combat in place its almost undoable.

Can you still swim up waterfalls, and is the end game still a grind for gear?

I dunno about those screenshots but they don't look like the game was turned on max settings, my Nvidia GTS 250 played the game on full graphics and it looked phenomenal... I think you might need a new computer. :P Other than that great write up, tis my favorite MMO to date, even though I expended most of the content I would definitely return to it to do it all over again, but for now I'm trapped in a 3 month sub with Rift... -_______-

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by Jesterftk

As someone advised i checked out the latest developments and i agree, its worth playing and a great game. Even comboskipping is realy hard now, i once masterd it but with the new pace of combat in place its almost undoable.

Can you still swim up waterfalls, and is the end game still a grind for gear?

 

Hmm actualy i dont know about the waterfall thing right now , i have not seen anyone doing it in ages... regarding the endgame, if you grind for gear in AoC then you are the kind of player that grinds for gear in ANY game. Grinding marks for some tiny bit better gear is no content for me at all. So i quest and do instances now and then when i feel like it.

Yup, you can still swim up waterfalls. Then again, if that's the only downside to a game it's a pretty sweet game, huh?

The grind has essentially been fully addresses. I'm Rank 1 (of 4?) in a few Factions and in about 3 nights of extremely casual play I've earned nearly enough faction to get to rank 2 after the new "no grind" patch.

Previous to this patch I'd grinded nightly for a week, the same kill 10 things over and over again and hadn't even made it to Rank 1.

So, three things have happened from this no grind patch. Firstly, people are able to raise far more factions, faster, since they get rewards and points much quicker and much more casually. A few quests a night instead of repeated grinding of kill quests.

Secondly, people get more gear now since they can get the rewards for them much quicker. Instead of 4-6 MOAs a night you can get 30-40. Better and more varied gear faster, without as much actual grinding. Yay!

Lastly, people that never got into Khitai or factions now can quite easily without the fear of "Oh, I have to kill 10 wolves, 10 times a night to get a hat?" As a casual player who socializes more than grinds, this is really great for me.

There is one drawback and that's the new 20 hour cool down. Now, for me this means I can knock out my 2-4 quests and get onto fun things with friends and not have to worry about 'missing out' on anything. But for the boring grindaholics it means they can't get as many rewards per night, but then again anyone who was grinding 8-10 hours a day probably needed a break anyway.

So yeah, AoC is really quite improved and keeps getting better. The end game faction grind has been really nicely fixed and Khitai is sooooo beautiful.

I think you can still swim up waterfalls...but I have a horse and find that it's more practical for travelling purposes.

Uh...when did he play this?  The servers he listed don't exist.  There is a PvP server, a PvP-RP server, and two PvE servers.  Crom isn't even on the list.

Not many other MMOs have the same level of atmosphere AoC does. The graphics and music really capture and immerse you. The highest I ever got was like 60 Barb about 2 years ago. I'm MMO homeless atm too and have been thinking about restarting in FFXI, AoC or just waiting until FF14 to shape up. I'm hesitant to try AoC again, last time I played getting groups for dungeons was almost impossible while leveling, I can't imagine it has gotten better with a lesser population. I was always annoyed by the lack of LFD tools,not cross realm like current WoW but more like BC where you can just  click Black Bastle and set a lfg flag for it. Spamming global chat constantly sucked.

Originally posted by Boge

Uh...when did he play this?  The servers he listed don't exist.  There is a PvP server, a PvP-RP server, and two PvE servers.  Crom isn't even on the list.

Crom is a euro server.

Them are some dated looking screenshots.

Come on.AoC looks better than that. Turn up your graphics, sheesh.

AoC has come a long way in past 2 years.

Give it another shot .. Crom server is good for all around, Hyrkania for nice ppl if a bit slow during off peak.