For anyone new to the Conan MMO, it's the game that Funcom hope will decapitate every complaint anyone has ever had with the MMORPG genre. During its five-year development cycle, what's emerging most strongly is that it's a game of compromises. That might sound like damning with faint praise, but remember that compromise can be a good thing.
The first 20 levels are a blend of single-player nighttime action and multiplayer daytime gaming. So you have more of a significant role in the universe, compared to a regular MMO that can't allow you to leave a lasting stain on its world. In WOW-alikes everything fades and everything respawns, and nothing reeks of futility like waiting for an owl to pop back into existence just so you can kill it again.
Compromise is laudable, but tricky. The day-night cycle of low-level Hyboria isn't immediately intuitive and nowhere is the need for explanation more evident than in Conan's hybrid combat.
This is a combination of traditional tactical MMO decisions and button-tapping combos. Your basic attack can be to the left, right or centre. When you choose a more powerful attack, you're presented with a chain of key presses, which you have to follow, to complete the attack (it's a bit reminiscent of Street Fighter).
Meanwhile, the enemies are repositioning their shields: three white barriers which shift around as the creature responds to your directional attacks. Whale on the right flank and eventually the shields will move there, giving you opportunity to attack from another flank, or, even more effectively, select a powerful move that ends on a side with few, or no, shields.
GET IN LINE
When I played the game I was thrown in at the deep end and while it felt like a system that's instantly satisfying in single-player, it required slightly more co-ordination than a room full of curious journalists possess to figure out effective group play. Most of my longer combos were hindered by the fact that everyone else wouldn't get out of the way while I pulled off a groovy stab.
The ethos behind the combat is to make it feel more real. So, contrary to the genre standard, collision detection prevents you from all standing in the same place, priests are required to face their target and you don't have to get off your mount to slice open a peasant. This all feels genuinely idealistic - which can't be a bad thing - but also seems more suited to solo or small-group play: a 40-man raid would quickly degrade into the Tube exit of Oxford Circus on a rainy Saturday.
PLEASING EVERYONE
Conan isn't just a compromise between genres - Funcom have had to compromise between these ideals and the desires of the beta testers.
The original intention was to give the player a blank slate, allowing them to decide their class and specialisations long after the character creation screen. But people didn't like that, so rolling a new character now sets the template for all 80 levels.
The four archetypes - Rogue, Priest, Soldier and Mage - couldn't be more recognisable. And don't be put off by the Conan canon - the Stygian Herald of Xotli is pretty much a shape-shifting Druid and anything with a succubus following it is cursed with comparisons to WOW's Warlock.
The feat points system is directly comparable to WOW's talent points and with a level 80 cap, they're considerably more involved, too. There's plenty of options you'll be forced to neglect, making for a larger number of possible specialities.
Comments
15 comments so far...
nologo on 6 May '08 said:
this has put me off buying the game and i cancelled my pre-order lol cheers cvg, saved me a few quid
Anonymous on 6 May '08 said:
On the other hand, I'm sold.
The word "grind" was nowhere to be seen, plus the PVP sounds like nothing else out there.
Demoki on 6 May '08 said:
why pre order a game which you obviously didnt care much about?
I cant wait, and reading a...what? slighty not screaming out preview, is gonna change that? nooo
Jon2309 on 6 May '08 said:
Well, this'll bring my subscription fees up to around £50 a month
Looks pretty damn awesome, mainly because of the PvP and violence lacking in the other MMOs I play.
Oh yeah, and I suspect a bit of bias from someone with a WoW avatar, as the above poster has proven.
Trite on 7 May '08 said:
They cannot iron out all the bugs, glitches and crashes with the time they have left before release. It is really horrible now. It will be a flop.
Got my money on the WAR CE, so all I say is WAAAGH.
Anonymous on 7 May '08 said:
I was looking forward to this a while back, and ordered the collectors edition.
The more I've read and seen has convinced me to cancel it and wait for Warhammer.
Anonymous on 7 May '08 said:
Apparently most if not all those bugs have been fixed but the beta is using an older client for some reason with those bugs still incorporated. Not a clever PR move I would have thought
nologo on 7 May '08 said:
exactly my thoughts, this game will be its 5mins of fame..then die a death. it sounds to me, like its been built for consoles, the whole button combo's really puts me off.
for the guy who said "why pre-order it if you dont care about it", because im a massive mmorpg fan..and always like to try something new, but this sounds like a consoles approach to an mmorpg(pc version made for showing off gfx and beta testing). it just won't cut it when it comes to WAR etc etc
briangriffin on 9 May '08 said:
well I cant wait for this game. Ive been beta testing it and I love it, it looks and plays brilliantly. The thing I like the most is that even from the early levels you feel like a fearsome warrior and they dont feel like a grind. I hated the early levels in WOW and Everquest cause you spend hours killing rats and spiders and the like. With AOC from the get go your fighting decent opponents straight out of howards books which for me kept the early levels interesting. I wouldnt have got very far in the conan books if I had to read about him killing worms and beetles!
Ive had a few connection drops, but nothing really damaging in terms of bugs, its been a pretty smooth ride and I have nothing but good things to say about the game, they have really done howards writing justice and it looks and sounds amazing! well done funcom and I can wait for the full release!
marduk82 on 11 May '08 said:
Well if this well-informed chap isnt buying it anymore, i think i will cancel my pre-order also, along with my early access.
briangriffin on 12 May '08 said:
no offence dude, but if he walked in front of a bus, would you?
I think people like to put down on this game, but what ive played of it, i think its excellent! so give it a try!
PCG Harv on 13 May '08 said:
Must admit I've cancelled my pre-order too, after testing it for some time. I just don't think it's got what it takes, to be honest. I'll keep an eye on it, but I'm no longer in a hurry to get in at the beginning.
boggsi on 14 May '08 said:
Being a fairly hardcore wow player I fired up and gave the beta a try. I was both impressed and unimpressed. My biggest trouble with wow was that it seemed to lack some skill, any man and his donkey could get epics. Especially with the new heroic rewards.
Age of Conan seems to bring back a lot of the skill in MMO, with simply more things going on and compensates you with more feedback (nice graphics, tactics etc.) but I found combat to be somewhat imprecise. I preferred my big letters of damage floating up the screen and clearly defined combat tables. This is all felt a little "fluffy", perhaps if I sat down with a dev and he explained the mechanics, Id feel better, but I liked the way this information seemed at your fingertips in wow.
marduk82 on 15 May '08 said:
Sarcasm?
Maybe?
Anonymous on 20 May '08 said:
Might as well stick my oar in here as I've been playing the early access for the last few days. I'm gonna go bullet points (without the bullets). I've only played up to the early 20's so it's by no means exhaustive.
Pro -
-It's different enough to work without being too different.
-Combat is satisfying and you really do need to pay attention, especially after the first few levels. Not had much need to play with my own characters defensive shields, it could get very deep (and rather hard) for tanking because of them.
-It looks great, and runs more smoothly than I'd been led to believe by beta reports.
Some interesting character and enemy design, good sound and music too, all the npc's on the first island are completely voice acted.
-So far, zero grinding and no repair costs, hooray for that.
Neggy-wegs -
-It does need a mother of a PC to get the best out of it, mine's no slouch but the fps is v dodgy at max settings.
-It's freaking massive and right now is constantly patching, 30gb ish install.
So far Funcom are kind of keen on leaving people in the dark about things and customer support aint amazing, my main character lost 5 levels, submitted a bug report and petition - still have had no explanation.
-Pet classes control in a weird way... might not be a problem for other people.
-8 character slots, 12 classes? Why?
So far so good, well worth a look for those with wow burnout.