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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: CES 2007 Preview
Carolyn Koh had a chance at this year's CES in Las Vegas to sit down in front of Funcom's upcoming title Age of Conan to get a hands on peek at the highly anticipated MMORPG.
General Article By Carolyn Koh on January 16, 2007
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, CES Preview
Carolyn Koh had a chance at this year's CES in Las Vegas to sit down in front of Funcom's upcoming title Age of Conan to get a hands on peek at the highly anticipated MMORPG.
advertisement Funcom was represented at CES2007 this year in the Games for Windows area in the Las Vegas Convention Center. I don’t usually brave the “zoo” but did so this year for the sake of MMORPG.com readers.
Despite Windows Vista blue screens of deaths with both computers, we managed to see a little of the newbie experience on Age of Conan. Due to launch in summer 2007, Age of Conan:Hyborian Adventures is three years in the making, and currently in the Friends and Family stage of closed beta.
;)
I spoke with Erling Ellingsen, Product Manager and Jorgen Tharaldsen, Product Director of Funcom, Norway of whom I asked to describe the world of Conan for those not familiar with the IP. Jorgen’s description was quite succinct. “We are brutal barbarians struggling for survival in Hyboria.”
At this point in the world, Conan is not a young adventurer, but King of Hyboria. Although there are three different races, the Stygian, the Aquilonian and the Cimmerian in this world, Age of Conan does not have a faction system, but you do want to curry favor with the King. Always a good thing to be on the side of absolute power, yah?
We started in character creation and we found ourselves on a slave ship. That is the premise; that you’ve escaped slavery and are making your way in this brutal, backward world. As Erling showed me the possibilities, there is one word I can say about the level of physical character customization possible in Age of Conan, and that is “Amazing!” There are over 30 different aspects of physical attributes that you can adjust. For example, just for the cheeks alone, you can adjust the length, the width, the height and the depth. With this, you can create a very gaunt look or fat chubby cheeks.
The same goes for the body. You can create an anorexic woman with huge (and I mean huge!) ta-tas, a man with the physique of Arnie or Pee-Wee Herman as you wish, and as usual, there’s the wonderful single click randomizer. One thing you cannot do is to give your character a pot-belly. Ahem… you are an escaped galley slave after all. But, onto the game and its unique features!
;)
Camp gameplay. Players can interact with the environment in different ways – one of them is to poison the water so NPCs become weakened when they drink. Another is distraction. NPC guards can be drawn off by firing an arrow or throwing a rock to create a disturbance.
“All NPCs have a radius of hearing and sight, and that will change depending on whether it is day or night. How much light there is to see by, how much ambient sound there is to disguise your movement.”
Funcom is still working on their AI to perfect that, but Jorgen tells me, “What we are trying to do though is to use our AI and dynamic scripting so that i.e. an area will change "behavior" at night, like it would in real-life. For instance the streets of a city will see a different kind of life at night than compared to day.”
Now I had to ask about sound, and was told by Jorgen that “Sound is very important to Funcom. There are about 10 – 12,000 sound effects and about 4 CDs worth of music written just for the game.” He went on to describe their proprietary SIM player – originally developed for Anarchy Online – that creates sound and music on the fly. “It’s a live re-mix of music.”
We touched on some unique class skills, such as the ability for Thieves to climb and pickpockets (only NPCs). Spellweaving is another unique ability – that of combining spells together before unleashing them.
“Oh by the way… if you draw too much dark magic, you could end up in hell, tormented by demons.” Ut-oh… now that that’s said, every spell caster is going to want to do it once just to see hell, and fight their way out of it.
Real Combat is Age of Conan’s calling card. Players will be able to control where they direct their blows in combat and if you happen to swing through a group of enemies, everyone within the arc of your weapon will sustain damage. There’s no auto-fire with bows, and there will be mounted combat – where the way you ride counts – i.e. more damage if you are charging than if you walk up and poke someone with a spear.
;)
The Microsoft Xbox360 controller is compatible with the PC and Erling used it to great effect showing off the combat system.
Being set in the brutal, barbarian world of Hyboria, PvP is part of the game. Funcom plans to have Free For All PvP servers as well as regular PvE servers where there will be regions that PvP is active.
Three forms of PvP will be available. The one that is most accessible and could prove to be a lot of fun is Drunken PvP, or Drunken Brawling. With a cool twist – the type and amount of alcohol you consume affects your skills. Some skills may go up, others (such as the ability to actually hit your target) may go down. What sounds like it’s going to be really fun is that levels & equipment will not matter here, just the weapon you are wielding, how well you hit (it’s Real Combat afterall) and how well you hold your booze!
The Mini-Game is your basic arena type games such as King of the Hill and FFA. Players wanting to participate will be matched up by the in-game match-making engine – not only that, the PvP-leveling system divides the 80 levels into 4 PvP tiers, and players will be auto-leveled up to the max level of that tier during the PvP fight to keep the contest challenging.
Finally, there is massive PvP or siege PvP. An end-game type for guilds to battle for the control of keeps in the Border Kingdoms. Siege engines, mounted combat… calvary charges. Woot! All PVP will give you PvP standing that Funcom aims to track on their website.
The Age of Conan website: http://www.ageofconan.com actually has great in-depth information on the game and I urge readers to take a look at it as it will cover more information that a tradeshow article will be able to.
Funcom showed off the game play in full DX10. “A world first!” Jorgen was proud to proclaim. Already rich in colors and detail in DX9, the game looks wonderful in DX10. Gamers need not worry that they have to have Windows Vista as well as Vista capable machines to play Age of Conan when it launches though. Age of Conan will ship using DX9 with the graphics upgrade to DX10 available later in the game.
What about beta applications? “Soon… soon…” was the response.
If anyone is interested in checking out a unique guild concept for this up comming game then go to the City of Lochlainn website.
http://www.conan.ch/lochlainn/
This game should be a real blast for the mature gamer
Yes. :) Remember though, that June is summer and still Q2. I'm not saying that it's a June launch though. They will launch when they launch. Heck... they haven't even started taking beta sign ups.
I'm intrigued, Sabbicat :). Personally, player housing make me giddy/gleeful :D. I think that's a really cool idea, a kind of guild for the guildless...then again, I think any player city (and by that I mean with buildings OTHER than just player-built houses) is a really cool idea.
Awesome article. I really hope Funcom doesn't rush it, and takes the time to come out with a quality game at launch.
The only thing I have to worry about now are the truly stupid people who will be getting their prepubescent children this M-rated game and complaining about how violent it is while still being subscribed and not doing anything about it.
As far as I know, they haven't said anything about individual player housing being added in any future expansion. The game will have guild housing at release. It won't be just a place to store gear but rather a keep you have to defend periodically from NPC attackers. In addition to this, a guild can go after a 2nd type of property in the PvP zones—battlekeeps. These will be much harder to hold, however, as they will be attacked by enemy guilds and not just NPC armies. You can read more details about it here.
magic users are very well set up in this game such as a few nercos joining togetehr to creat a larger and much more powerfull pet
spellweaving is a great advantage except for the fact that it might backfire and hurt the caster
every class in the game is ballanced and very well
player cities and housing brought me to DAoC first of all and almost made me get into this game =] i just cant wait!
I guarantee corruption is a cool thing, especially for this style of game. Magic for the most part has it's roots in evil in the conan books, and I have played the pen and paper Conan D20 Roleplaying game, and in that too there is corruption points. I hear though they are working with the people who wrote the d20 pen and paper game to make the MMORPG, i don't know if that's true but from the sound of corruption points, and the list of " feats " that give your character special abilities, it sure sounds like it.
Total
Ownage
Could it be true? Will it be as amazing as we hope?
We've gone through so many disappointments lately with hyped MMO's. Conan and Spellborn are my last hopes for mmokind.
Looks like this will be one of the games that could make 2007 a banner year for MMORPGs.
Of course, one has to wonder what kind of machine you need to push all these cool graphics and awesome game mechanics. I have a feeling it's not going to jabe to be pretty powerful.
"The Microsoft Xbox360 controller is compatible with the PC and Erling used it to great effect showing off the combat system."
To hell with that, what about compatibity with the sweet little moton controlled Wii-mote
People have sync'ed it to PC's for other games... would be sweet to actually swing a "sword" (wii-mote) and block with a "shield" (nunchuck) or even draw a bow, headbutt, commit any kind of combat really
Would have to be set up infront of a HD TV via wi-fi to your PC though... need the room to really swing that bi'tch
Wooo! I like the sound of this! In reality this game sounds really cool and I hope the developers pull through!
Lol so true
Thanks. :)
Big deal.
D&D Online works with one too, so does World of Warcraft.....and probaly many others.
The decision to release AoC on XBOX 360 is going to nerf the PC version for sure.
As a life-long RE Howard's Conan fan I had really, really high hopes for this game, but the more info I pick up about it the more I can see it turnng in a generic pile of poop.
Haven't heard a thing about the promised 'play ofline for the first ten levels' before jumping into the online world idea that was spouted a couple of years back. I expect it's been canned in favour of noob starting areas. And to make things worse they're calling the Woodsman class 'RANGERS' FFS.
Next up Barbarians will be called Warriors and will be expected to tank.
I'm not dissing the game of course as I haven't seen it yet, just the design promises which were made, but seem to have been forgoyyen in favour of WOW cloning.
Secondly, you NEVER play "offline" you are always on funcoms servers, you just dont start paying for the game untill after the 20 level mainly single player experience on Tortage and step onto the main continent. Even during this phase of playing you will run into other players and be able to hook up with them at points in the storyline ( night time missions were eluded too). As for the ranger topic, I would have prefered they went with waylayer too as it makes a change from the usual view of ranger, but Howard used the term ranger in one of his books so they went with that.
Your whole post was a diss, and point me at these so called wow features?, basicaly everyone here is less informed about the game after reading you post. Do us all a favour an read the fucking faq. I mean you would have thought you would have got at least 1 thing in your post right due to dumb luck but alas nothing in your post is correct.
+1 to that man, +1 to that.
The game is looking amazing. Every time I hear more about it it gets me more and more excited :D. I can't wait.
“All NPCs have a radius of hearing and sight, and that will change depending on whether it is day or night. How much light there is to see by, how much ambient sound there is to disguise your movement.”
Funcom is still working on their AI to perfect that, but Jorgen tells me, “What we are trying to do though is to use our AI and dynamic scripting so that i.e. an area will change "behavior" at night, like it would in real-life. For instance the streets of a city will see a different kind of life at night than compared to day.”
So nothing I said was 'right' me ol'' chum?
DDO and WoW work fine with 360 / dual axis controllers and can be used to play them to great effect - Right I am.
The 360 version WILL nerf the PC version - Right I am as of this moment....Or you know better there matey?
RE Howard called his 'rangers' Woodsmen. Take a wee trip up the Black river if you can read. - I am right again.
As you said yourself you will be playing 'online' all the time up to level 20???? In Tortuga??? Sounds like a noob area to me - Right again. Goodness me that's 4 rights so far.
I assume you're playing the beta so would be in a position to know about the 'diss' I mentioned, namely are barbarians about to be called warriors and expected to 'tank'.
I wasn't dissing AoC in the slightest. I said I had high hopes for it.....and still do.
Firstly What DDO and WOW do with the 360 controller has no bearing on what AOC will turn out to be.
Sercondly, Jesus I just friggen told you in the post before the DEVS... you know the guys that are MAKING THE GAME have posted on their own boards that the 360 launch has no baring on features released in the pc version. You just rolled right over this one, so yes I do know better "matey".
Typing WILL in big letters does not make your misinformed prattle any more true than the first time you spewed it. The fact is, the 360 version may have MORE features than the PC as it is coming out way later, quite the oposite of the PC game being dumbed down to accomodate the 360. I have posted a couple of threads to help you wrap your head around it as it seems your struggling.
forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php
forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php
Thirdly, Like I said the Ranger.. ok... Woodsman class.. I would have had as Waylayer, on this point at least we are agreed, there is alot of posts on the funcom boards about it as well as an explanation from Jayde as to why they went with ranger.
Fourth, you said originaly that they promised offline play, and I responded with the fact that AGAIN you were wrong and that the single player portion would be played online, so how the hell does that make you right?. Oh and the area you speak of is Tortage not Tortuga and its still predominantly solo play, like thay said all along as apposed to your standard "noob area" as you put it. It seems your one of those guys that just repeats himself over and over, saying I AM RIGHT! even when confronted with evidence to the contrary.
EDIT: and why are you typing like a pirate?
Oh and if your interested I dug up the post about rangers for you bellow
Our goal is not to be different just for the sake of being different, after all. Our goal is to be different where we feel that being different could significantly improve the player experience. This is an important thing to keep in mind.
I don't see too much reason to avoid using something just because it's been used before--after all, familiarity is important as well. As long as it fits the theme, that is the most important thing.
Besides, let's be honest here. Almost everything has been "done before" in some game or another. When it comes to things like class names or the like, you aren't going to be able to come up with something that is both recognizable and totally original at the same time. So, in the end, we'll just end up using what we feel fits the class vision best.
~JAYDE