Distribution:Retail | Retail Price:$19.99 | Pay Type:SubscriptionBUY IT
Desktop Client | System Req:
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures News - Hands-On Report
Posted by Jon Wood on Dec 14, 2007 | 83 comments in our forums
Recently, News Manager Keith Cross had the opportunity to travel to San Francisco for a hands-on demonstration of Funcom's upcoming MMORPG, Age of Conan. The experience was under embargo until today, so today he files his report.
If this isn’t the first article you’ve read about Funcom’s upcoming game, then you probably already know that between the years when Atlantis went tits up and before the sons of Aryas started doing their thing, there was an age undreamed of, where many shining kingdoms were spread across Hyborea. There was the dark and mysterious Stygia, Aquilonia the proud, and Cimmeria where the Atlanteans fled. And during this age there came a man of great mirth and melancholies for whom this age is named, the Age of Conan.
Speaking of the Age of Conan, I recently had the opportunity to attend a press event and get a hands-on look at one of 2008’s most anticipated games. Several people from Funcom, including Product Director Jorgen Tharaldson were on hand to answer questions and get killed by the press in a few PvP matches.
My experiences in-game began with character creation which was fairly comprehensive, considering that not every character customization feature had been added for this demonstration. Most notably absent was the ability to play female characters, as that option just wasn’t ready at the time. So I set to work making my dark haired Aquilonian with an Amish style beard. Some of the hair and beard styles weren’t quite ready, and didn’t fit on the face properly, leaving a noticeable gap between the cheeks and the beard, but that’s to be expected at this stage, as the game is still in beta with a currently scheduled March 25th 2008 launch. These little problems were made up for by an abundance of sliders for the body and face. A particular favorite among the standard face lengtheners and eye shrinkers, was the broken nose slider, which allows a player to adjust the direction and severity of their avatar’s broken nose. The triangular slider used to choose body type was also a nice change from the usual two dimensional left-right sliders, and gives the feeling of having more freedom when choosing how big, thin and/or, muscular you want your character to be. Aside from the bad hair dos and no girls (which kind of reminds me a little bit of high school) the only other thing I would have liked to have seen would be an age slider, but that’s more of a personal preference than something the game was lacking.
;)
Read the whole article here.
