Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Collector's Edition) (PC, 2008)

I have been waiting for Age of Conan for a long, long, time. I had hopes it would be the next great MMORPG (which it is and the sales and servers are showing that to be the case). The game looks great but to my dismay Funcom disabled DX10 and announced 2 days before launch that the game wouldn't have DX10 support until the Xbox 360 version comes out later this year. That was a major disappointment for me (and lame of funcom to do right before launch!) since I just spent 2 grand on a super computer to run the game. With the game on DX9 and maxed graphics at 1920x1200 resolution I was only getting 30-40 average frames per second. and I get 19K on 3dmark06! So obviously they need to do a lot of optimizing. The DX9 looks amazing but it's so unoptimized they knew if they released DX10 the only people who could play it on DX10 would be those with extreme edition CPU's and tri/quad SLi or Quad 3870 video cards.

The first 20 levels are strange, at night you are playing single player doing missions and in the day you are at multi player. The night missions ussualy advance the story and since you're in SP mode the world can be dramatically altered for those missions. I thought the first 20 levels were very well done, in fact it's the most thought out, well designed, starting area ever seen in a MMO of this scale. The big problem though was the lack of polish made the transition from day to night and back kind of awkward.

Overall the biggest gripes I had with the game were the terrible UI, performance issues, no DX10, and the world is broken up into instances (think LOTRO) Not just raiding dungeons and area's are instanced but even the map areas are. I feel that that is such a cop out when WOW was able to do it years ago...

The b est part of Conan are undoubtedly the Combat system. What a revolution for the genre! This is going to make this game stand out BIG time. It changes everything. Suddenly skill matters and not just the gear you got when you tagged along with that really awesome guild for a few weeks. The system is an active blocking system, you can see where an enemy (and yourself) is defending and you can change what area you want to defend more so than others on the fly in battle and so can the enemy. It makes for amazing battles.

The City I've seen so far tartia (or something like that) is truely amazing. It looks so cool with huge inclines and wide streets, changes of elevation everywhere. It's sweet.

The missions in AOC are pretty neat too. When you go into a new area and start grabing your ussual "collect 10 bear teeth" and "go get me my ring I lost when the monsters attacked" type missions, they tend to layer missions on top of each other so when you are out grinding these missions you tend to complete several at a time before going back to turn in and it creates a sense of getting a lot done.

The best part of AOC will no doubt be the player guild cities and outpost seiges. Players will spend resourses to build thier own cities that will give their guild buffs and allow item purchases and such, and 8 outposts are allowed at any one time and will be attached to player cities, each week guilds will be challeneged and whoever wins gets the right to build/rebuild the outpost. This will give hardcore players something to shoot for.

All in all I think it is a very solid offering and wil no doubt wreak havok on WOW's sales. essp. when DX10 and the 360 ver arrive. Go buy it, trust me evetually you will.

Age of Conan wasn't simply a 5 year disappointment, it even rebuffed my attitude toward World of Warcraft, a game I'd gotten sick of long ago.

The first 20 levels of Conan aren't simply bad, they are painful to play.

Those of you going to Conan because of its "amazing" graphics, STOP. Check your system and their RECOMMENDED system requirements. If you only make the minimal, ask yourself how much you'll enjoy playing the game in towns at 8 FPS.

I went into this game anticipating a leveling system similar to World of Warcraft's quest driven leveling, but Funcom outdid themselves with Age of Conan. If you were one of those people who enjoyed WoW the first, second, maybe even third time through each new character you will find that the first 20 levels in Conan are about as mind dulling as leveling a character in WoW from 1-70, 10 times over. The quests allow for absolutely no creativity in your leveling pattern. They allow for no changes for players wishing to try something a little different. Unfortunately this will completely kill most players' desire to level more toons.

After level 20 things do open up, to an extent. If you don't have many friends going into the game with you, I'd advise not playing on a PvP server if you didn't start playing at launch. There are people who will sit and camp the graveyards for hours on end, sometimes leaving you no option other than to log off for awhile.

Conan does excel in graphics, but that's more of a problem than a benefit for most players. Most players I've talked to run the game on low graphics, and despite what some people are saying, playing on low is nowhere near stellar. If your computer is more than a year old, anticipate spending $50 for the game, $15 per month, and $200-$300 to update your graphic's card(s) and RAM.

Age of Conan is simply not replayable. Anyone wishing to make this game his or her longterm MMO, don't waste your money. Age of Conan is a good once and done game for most players who enjoy set storylines, but Funcom left out almost every important aspect that would allow this game to survive for years to come (especially since there are 10 other games just like this out already).

I do have one major appreciation toward Funcom. They had a very smooth release. Most games announce a release date, push it back two or three times, and then still release the game with bugs (people getting stuck in entire zones and being unable to play for days). These releases are almost always behind schedule, follow by patches two times a day, poor customer service the first few weeks, and servers being down on a regular basis. At least Funcom managed to avoid all those.....oh wait.

To those of you wishing to purchase this game I salute you, but only because I have a pre-order copy I'd like to sell.

I give AoC an "Average" rating, but it has the "potential" of being the next HUGE MMORPG for PC. It just needs a lot ... and I mean a TON ... of work from Microsoft to get it to that level.

I am a LONG time World of Warcraft player and a bunch of us pre-ordered AoC. I even dropped almost $3,000 on a new "Super Gaming Computer" to play AoC because it was marketed to be played on a DirectX 10 Platform. Then TWO days before the game was released, Microsoft announced it would not be turning on the DX10 Platform until later this year.

Don't get me wrong, the graphics in the game are stunning even using DirectX 9 on a Windows XP PC ... provided you have a "Super Gaming System with Windows XP". However, I personally want to see the game the way it was marketed. If you have an average gaming system with Windows XP, be prepared for a laggy game that you have to play on the lowest video settings. AoC is in its beginning stages of growth and you will find the game locks up on you a lot and can be a really big headache.

Like most Microsoft Products, Age of Conan was simply released to the public WAY before it was ready. Right now you have to play with DX9 Graphics when the game was marketed as a DX10 "wet dream". The first 20 levels of play are GREAT with imaginative talking NPCs that take you through the world. Incredible Voice Over Cut Away Scenes with the NPCs. You are led to believe he entire game will be like this.

WRONG ... Once you hit level 20ish and have to leave Tortage, the starting city, very, VERY few of the NPCs have Voice Overs in the Cut Away Scenes. You are left having to read Walls of Text for each quest giver. It was a really BIG let down.

Microsoft is working on the game with at least two patches a week. They are promising more Voice Overs. The game WILL get better with time. You just have to be VERY patient while waiting.

The biggest let down of all is the fact that this game will be out for XBOX 360 in a few months. So basically you can pay a small fortune for an Uber Gaming PC with Vista and DX10 or just catch a sale at Wal Mart on an XBOX 360 around Christmas, buy the game then, and play online with the same people who are on PCs.

Hi there,
I have been playing online RPG's and MMO's over the last 13 years.

Through the years I have Beta'd and Played many games such as Ultima Online, EverQuest I & II, Asheron's Call I & II, Diablo I & II, Lineage I & II, Anarchy Online, GuildWars, Fable I & II, EvE, World of WarCraft, any many others.

Age of Conan does what alot of these previous games have done only better and it also adds a few things they have not. I am not going to sit here and tell you that its the perfect game for you, but what I will say is this.

Many of us have been waiting for a game that actually brings us into the game world and makes you feel like apart of the world as well as takes combat to the next level.

Age of Conan has done this better than any other game before it with beautiful graphics, stunning enviroments, wonderful music, rich lore, real time combat, and has put them all together in such a way that you feel deeply immersed in this world.

Lets talk about hardware for just a minute.

Truthfully you will need to have a computer well above the min specs to fully enjoy this game at its best. At least a 8800 GT graphics card is recommened as well as 3 GB of ram.

This game was released on the 20th of may and has been running very steady ever since. It has had one of the most stable launches in the history of MMO's. They have been adding content and patching at least twice a week.

Yes I would definately say that Age of Conan is worth buying and playing for years to come. A Game like this does not come out very often its about time a Gaming Company thought of the Casual Gamers as well as the PvPers at the same time.

Leveling is easy and Heads will ROLL!!! ;)

One of the best games to come out in years, and this is only 2 weeks after release before the game gets polished up!
Gameplay is fresh and new, involved story lines and the world feels real, much more real than WoW with crammed in areas with random small mob groups.
I would strongly recomend this to any RPG or MMO fan, great combat system and diversity in character development.