Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures

[Skar]

http://www.ageofconan.com/conan/en/index.html

I was flabbergasted to see this.  It's so cool I'm speechless.  WoW made me want to play a MMORPG a great deal.  Given this Age of Conan game that desire has trebled well beyond my ability to resist it.

Anyone know anything more about this game?

[Spriggan]

I've been watching this game since it was first announced 2 years ago, I love that mouse movements are used for spellcasting and combat.

[Phaz]

As a WoW player (addict?) I think this game is going to be great.

Even if it isn't the big killer that pulls people away from WoW, I think it should at least put some much needed pressure on Blizzard.  WoW has such a huge percentage of the player base right now.  It's almost they have a monopoly.  There are a lot of things that players want, that they aren't providing, but in all honesty, no one else is really providing those things either (with the exception of maybe 1-2 things you can find in a game or two).

For example, people in WoW have been begging for some kind of formal guild housing since even before the game was released.  At this time, it doesn't look like it's something they are going to see.  Even something as simple as a guild bank is only being planed for sometime in the distant future.  Age of Conan not only provides, that but it takes it 2 steps further.

A lot of the things Age of Conan has to offer (Guild cities, skill based combat, solo content) are things that MMORPG players have wanted for a long time.  If anything, this should at least finally put some pressure on Blizzard to bring some new things into WoW.

[Spriggan]

Close beta applications have been open for a week or so now, they got over 100,000 applications in just a few days that's quite impressive.

[Skar]

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Hey.  Anybody else out there playing this?  I am.  I LOVE IT!  But I'm a total fanboy, having grown up with Conan as a role-model and Howard as a favorite author, so my opinion is suspect.

Anybody else like it?

Anybody else on the bardisattva server?

Wanna form a guild, or know of a good one to join?

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[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I have not, largely because I have only played one MMO that I really enjoyed, and that one is free on all fronts.
but also because the person who is urging me most strongly to play it appealed to me by saying, "decapitate, check out boobies, wade through rivers of blood." I'm not bothered so much by the blood, though it's not a feature for me. To "boobies" part though was a turn off. He said other less quotable things about it too. Of course, he's a perv, but since that's the only source I have, except my brother, who only shrugged and changed the subject when I asked about the nudity, well...

[Skar]

Haven't seen any nudity.  Lots of scantily clad women, no nudity. (There's more skin at any given public swimming pool.) But certainly lots of blood.  Is the recommender you mention in high-school perchance?

What I'm enjoying the most is the combat system.  It's not what I imagined from the pre-game talk but neither is it the diabloesque, clicking on goobers, clicking on goobers, clicking on goobers, ... that is WoW.  And the blood and finishing moves are integrated well with the combat system.  In WoW, there are such things as critical hits, the results of which are, truly exciting, higher damage numbers floating up from your enemy's head.  In AoC, a critical hit, and it's higher damage numbers, are accompanied by your character cutting the guys head off, or ramming your sword through his chest and using your foot to get him off your blade.

Also, the skill point system, which is there in addition to a feat tree (much like the talent tree in WoW).  I'll admit I don't have a handle on the skill point system yet, not having played enough to see how the different skills work very far down the road, but it adds a lot of complexity and intriguing possibilities for different builds.

Then you have the quests.  They simply capture my imagination more powerfully than the quests in WoW did, or in any game for that matter.  The slave who begs you to find out what happened to the friend he was traveling with when he was captured simply holds more emotional weight for me than the farmer pining for his lost watch.  This is obviously personal taste, but it certainly works for me.

Am I really the only one on this forum playing this game?

[Spriggan]

There is nudity Skar, it's one of the top selling points of the game and all the game blogs talk about.  The box also lists nudity as part of the reason for the M rating.  I was going to try it but the nudity issue turned me off and I've outgrown liking excessive gore  so that's really not a reason to play.

It's also the only game I know where players cancel accounts because their female avatar's breast sizes are too small http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/06/02/age-of-conan-players-complain-of-shrunken-breasts-slightly-nsfw (by the way going to the funcom forum thread linked in that article is hilarious and no images are showen--links only)

There was talk of a nudity toggle, it was turned on for the beta but the developers were saying it might not make it into retail, so maybe that's turned on for you.  Also until level 20 you actually don't get into the online part of the game and so you won't be seeing people running around topless which is where you'll see the majority of naked women.

I have the soundtrack tough and absolutly love that, one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long time.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

As I said, my source is a bit of a perv. And he's only a few years older than high school, so I wasn't ready to trust his experience 100%.

What you say about the mechanics is appealing, as is the flavor. While the gore doesn't turn me off, it isn't a selling point either. I would be interested in seeing them make a kid- and squeemish-adult-safe version of this, perhaps under a different setting?

The MMO I've actually gotten interested in is Perfect World, which I guess I'll talk about in another thread.

[Skar]

There is nudity Skar, it's one of the top selling points of the game and all the game blogs talk about.  The box also lists nudity as part of the reason for the M rating.  I was going to try it but the nudity issue turned me off and I've outgrown liking excessive gore  so that's really not a reason to play."

Like I said, I haven't seen any nudity and I've been playing it for a couple of weeks now. This says nothing about whether you could find it if you wanted to, it's never occurred to me to try. If it's a toggle, the default setting is apparently 'clothed', which is fine with me.  I suspect that the size of the brouhaha over what nudity there is (which I haven't seen yet) may simply be the same thing that always happens when gamers and girls intersect.

There was talk of a nudity toggle, it was turned on for the beta but the developers were saying it might not make it into retail, so maybe that's turned on for you.  Also until level 20 you actually don't get into the online part of the game and so you won't be seeing people running around topless which is where you'll see the majority of naked women.

Don't get into the online part of the game until level 20?  Spriggan, that's ridiculous.  There have been other live players all around me since level 1. Perhaps you're thinking of the single player content which tops out at around 20.  That exists side-by-side with the online world in the same space.  It's like two different dimensions.  The single player content takes place 'at night' in the city of tortage, while the MMO content takes place 'during the day' in the city of tortage. You actually start in the day MMO world, but Players can move from one to the other at will.  I'm not saying those players can't run around topless, I just haven't seen anyone doing that.  Perhaps it has something to do with the armor considerations.

I have the soundtrack tough and absolutly love that, one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long time.

It is quite a good soundtrack.

Tonight I shall go searching for a nudity toggle.  If there are really naked women in this game, and it sounds like there are, I'll see how long it takes me to find them and report.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I doubt I shall ever be converted. At Skar's insistence of not any nudity seen, I did about 5 minutes of research on the game, and found at least 3 screenshots of nudity and a dozen articles talking all about the advance sensuous and naked women. *shrug* I don't deny the game play possibilities, but it doesn't sound like something I need in my home.

[Skar]

Meh, perhaps I shall be inundated with nudity now that I'm out in the wider world of the game. I don't deny the possibility. We shall see.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

i hope you don't take it as criticism. I'm certain I do lots of things you disagree with. I'm jus' sayin'. that's all.

[Spriggan]

same here, I'm just saying why I don't play it because I was intrested in the game.

[Skar]

No criticism inferred.  It may very well be over the top for some.  Hasn't been for me so far.  But I am honestly perplexed by the volume and fervor with which the 'in game nudity' is extolled out there on teh tubes.  I really haven't seen it in the game.