Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

[Ustauk]

 This sounds interesting.  With the wealth of novels and other source material to draw from, it shouldn't be too hard to flesh out the world and its storylines.  Plus it'd be neat to see a MMORPG with a little darker, more mature nature.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/606/606369p1.html

[Ustauk]

 What, not comment from our resident barbarian, Shayne?

[Mr. Analog]

 By Crom! There are plenty of homebrew Conan the Barbarian campaign settings out there already

[Ustauk]

By Crom! There are plenty of homebrew Conan the Barbarian campaign settings out there already

Imagining Hyboria using pen, paper, dice, and imagination would be cool, but I wouldn't mind seeing it rendered in DirectX 9 class graphics either

[Mr. Analog]

 Bah! Use the graphics engine in your noggin! Kick's ATi and NVidia's asses

[Ustauk]

 Q&As have come up on IGN and Gamespot about this game.

I like the idea of formations, it should make defending your squishies a bit easier.  And mounted combat: all I can say is charrrrrge!!!!!  From the description in the Gamespot Q&A, PvP should be a lot more complex then currently in WoW, although that might change after Battlegrounds comes in.

[Ustauk]

Here's another preview of Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures, and here's some fresh videos of the game.  I hope the developers get this right; it could be really cool if they do.

[Melbosa]

Here is an interesting twist to this one: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/750/750687p1.html

[Ustauk]

Here is an interesting twist to this one: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/750/750687p1.html

Its usually a good thing to have more then one platform's audience to work with, as long as neither platform suffers from lack of resources.  From what I've heard, it's not too painful to develop games for the 360, so hopefully the quality will be there on both.  I wonder if the vesions will be similar enough that they can share servers.  We'll see.

[Melbosa]

Resurrection Time!

Some new info on this one from GFW: Germany: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/774/774968p3.html

- At present the game will ship on 3 DVDs
- The unoptomised install footprint is 20GB
- Expected PC release date October
- May install onto the Xbox 360 hard drive to avoid disk swapping
- 360 version not out before Mid 08
- No exclusive content for 360 version as previously reported elsewhere
- Game starts with avatar on a slave ship that is attacked or crashes into rocks. Avatar wakes up on a beach with no memory (where have I experienced that before?) and a mysterious tattoo. Must hack 'n' slash way off island
- First hour is spent online, but in a completely instanced zone where you are the only player
- Then till level 20 you are an instanced version of the island with a small number of other players (100-200)
- Once off the island the entire world is available to explore
- 4000-5000 people per area at this point. All can group together in one spot if desired, though it'll likely crash the server
- World so big that loading between zones had to be implemented
- Some sections of each zone 4x4km
- Draw distance is infinite, so no fogging unless it's meant to be there. Details like trees and rocks will be LOD'd out
- Main quest line will take players through to level 80, though there are of course other side quests and quest lines
- As part of the main quest players will meet Conan. Not voiced by Arnie or even someone with an Arnie accent
- Other main NPCs will be voiced, rest will be text
- Multiple dialogue choices similar to those in Knights of the Old Republic. Example - you come across a farmer whose wife has been eaten by a croc and he requires her remains to bury and save her soul. Players can tell him to suck it up, and go get a new wife, blow him off completely, be sympathetic, or offer to help by gutting the crocodile and returning whatever parts of his wife haven't been digested
- This is no Teen rated game
- Game will be different in Germany due to the USK Rating Board and their dislike of excessive violence. Whether Germans can play on the same server as the rest of Europe remains to be determined
- Combo fighting system relies on hitting attack directions. First move lights other directions and by hitting those before a timer bar expires initiates the combo. Successfully stringing the combo for long enough creates a fatality attack
- Fatality attacks were not meant to be shown in case German sensibilities were hurt, or the USK sent German special forces into the conference room
- They were however, accidentally
- Fatalities consist of the avatar chopping heads off (cue arterial spray), impaling enemies with swords before head butting them off, and other such fun things
- Each weapon has a different number of possible attack directions, and fatality moves
- If equipped with a shield avatar can select a block icon during combat if it's displayed. Blocking successfully will temporarily open enemy up to attack
- Combos difficult to do with mouse as each icon has to be clicked. Easier to do with numpad or some other keyboard layout, or the 360 controller that has to be supported for GFW certification
- Magic also in game. There's basic magic that takes the form of clicking the icon and clicking the enemy, and more advanced magic that has to be comboed like melee attacks. Screwing up a difficult, lengthy combo may cause avatars to pass out or be struck by their own magic, opening them up for attack by the enemy
- Guilds can own land in special sections of the world and build armouries and such that apply guild wide bonuses to their members, such as improved weapons
- These lands, which will typically be defended by player/guild built castles, can be attacked by rivals with siege equipment. If the attackers are victorious they will take all land, and all buildings that weren't destroyed, instantly boosting their guild. Castle will however be damaged and will have to be repaired quickly or the evicted guild can quickly retake what used to be theirs
- Horses easy to come by; no mounted combat at present
- Limited beta test presently scheduled to be in late Spring to early Summer. Will eventually expand to open test

[Ustauk]

Resurrection Time!

Some new info on this one from GFW: Germany: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/774/774968p3.html

Sweet!  Thanks for the info, Mel.

[Melbosa]

Beta Sign-ups now: http://beta2.ageofconan.com/beta_application/