Date: 2008-05-21 11:26 Subject: Age of Conan: First Impressions (Retail) Security: Public

I FINALLY got AoC loaded and running last night after fucking around with it for most of the evening. Rolled Brimmstone, Cimmerian Conqueror on Omm. I had thought about running a Dark Templar dedicated to the snake god, Set, but I don't want to deal with the ERP implications of that just yet. I had to turn the graphics way down to play, but it is still enjoyable. It is a whole different look than WoW, but once they support DirectX10 fully and when/if I upgrade my video card, I can see where it would look incredible. I also had to turn off shadows at my level of settings because they were projecting out from NPCs like 15 feet in various directions, which creeped me right the hell out. Character creation was simple, yet you can really fine tune a lot of things. I'm told that female chatacters even have a breast slider, much to the delight of boys/men everywhere who have no idea what real tits look and feel like from personal experience. I myself had a slider for "Posterior", so I cranked that bitch up to give the ladies something to look at. Old Brimm is sporting scars from a bear on his chest, which is an international symbol for "Don't fuck with me, cause I've seen some shit", and my eyeline is blacked out like when Conan and company snuck into Thulsa Doom's palace in the movie. Hairstyles varied between "Fantasy Mullet" and "Lead Singer of an Emo Band", but I managed to find one that matched my savage spirit! I found a beard I like too, so pretty much I look like a really buffed up and pissed off Jesus. I'll turn your other cheek, with my fists! This whole look is complemented by the fact that the start of the game should be called Age of Loincloths. I've looted like 5 different styles of loincloths so far from my enemies, which not only begs the question "WTF is up with all these loincloths?" but also "Why the hell am I killing people and trying on their underwear?!". Finally I settled one one made from alligator skin, as it had the perfect combination of raw sex appeal and a hint of danger.

The melee system takes a bit of getting used to. The whole thing of picking where you hit adds another dimension to it. One thing that seems odd to me is that you have a finite number of bar slots in which to drag your abilities (like 10 or so), and I don't think you can use abilities that are not on your bar. Unless this changes later on, I can already tell at higher levels that this will mean a bit of strategy will be involved in selecting your bread and butter abilities. My friend Alex interviewed one of the game developers last year for his website and the guy told him that AoC was originally designed from the ground up as an Xbox 360 title and that the decision to take it to the PC came later. Maybe keeping things on the interface limited in this way is a result of that. I've managed a couple beheadings and chain kills so far (completely by accident I assure you), and I can't wait to learn how to do it on purpose. Supposedly you can parry attacks too, but I'l be damned if I figured out how. I just hit things. You can also double tap your movement buttons to dodge in different directions. Should be fun once I get the hang of it. The other thing I really like is that your health and stamina (think mana for melee) bars seem to refill quickly post-combat. I didn't have to worry about downtime between groups of enemies at all really. Even their bandage skill requires no actual bandages to craft and keep with you. The skill boots your health regen when you put points in it, and I guess they just assume you are smart enough to slap a band-aid on yourself after taking a beating.

The abilities themselves seem pretty varied and fun, even at lower levels. I basically have sweeping strikes and slam (including knockback) at level 5, and my version of battle shout lasts FOUR HOURS instead of 2 minutes. They've integrated the ability to swap between two different weapon sets on the fly, meaning that archers can pew pew and swap out for close combat or that a melee class can go from sword and board to dual wield or 2h easily and without mods. This is pretty cool I suppose given that some of your abilities will only function with certain weapon types (I have one that only works with 2handers for example).

The interaction with NPCs is pretty neat so far, as the camera goes into a kind of "RP Mode" closeup of your conversation, and the NPCs actually talk to you. If you've played games from Bioware like Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Empire, then you know what I mean. Your dialog options are numbered, and you can normally pick from a few different choices. Again, this seems like something I've seen way more on consoles (but then again I am not a huge PC gamer). I actually kind of like it tbh, as it feels more like you are talking to an actual person instead of just a quest giver (lol immersion). Plus, the first thing I had to do was rescue a runaway whore who was chained up and being used as a sex toy by some savages, so points up front for sweet ass fantasy babes! Once I set her free she admited that she had no coin or items to reward her with, but promised we could come to some sort of umm... arrangement once I entered the main city. Not sure what to think of my little Cimmerian soldier having a barbarian booty call awaiting him, but it is certainly better than getting 10 silver for some kobold ears.

The inventory system is nothing radically new, although I really like the fact that quest items and crafting items have their own tabs and have nothing to do with the available bag slots of your main inventory. Supposedly crafting in AoC can be done on the fly anywhere, so no more running back and forth or an alchemy lab or forge. More time to kill shit that way!

Oh, and I should mention the music is pretty good as well. It fits the setting without being a distraction, and it seemed to ramp up into "combat mode" when I was in the middle of clobbering some fools with my heavy jungle club. I'll probably continue to play with the soundtrack rolling just to see if it continues to be decent.

That is about all I had time to really notice in about one hour of actual gameplay. I haven't really tried interactions with other players yet as I just got to a point in the game where I can actually see other players (everyone starts out solo). I'm looking forward to running with a few more people. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get a guild started. I already have a good name for one that fits the game world perfectly...

"Set On My Face"



Oh yeah, I'm a badass!