Swordplay, Bloodshed and Questing

From the early footage of Age of Conan in action I could never understand the excitement around the "Real Combat" engine. After playing it however, I can say that it definitely has more energy than the standard scheme that dominates MMO gameplay. Rather than utilizing a base auto-attack that the player adds to with spells and special moves, AoC has a more active combat system. When you start the game you have three basic attacks: left, right and middle. The enemies will shield sides of their bodies to protect from these three attacks and the idea is that you want to attack the side with the least amount of defense.

There are three layers of defense that can be spread to all three areas or stacked two and three high in any area. Stacking shields leaves an area exposed resulting in more damage from any attacks that hit that area. As you slash at your opponent from the right chances are they'll start stacking shields on that side to lessen the damage forcing you to change directions. This simple system gives the combat a dynamic look and feel that other MMOs just don't share.

The combat gets even better once you start collecting combo attacks. These are attacks that you select and then have to trigger by hitting the appropriate attack direction to get them to go off. A successful combo results in a string of attacks, higher damage and maybe a lasting effect on you or your enemy depending on the combo. The early combos only require a single attack direction to trigger but eventually you'll get combos that require two. Like regular attacks the combos base damage on how the enemy's shields are stacked and where the combo hits.

Finishing off an enemy with a combo will sometimes result in a fatality animation based on your weapon. Whether it's a shield bash before running them through or a good old fashioned decapitation the fatalities always give your character a temporary boost and splash some blood up on the screen. It's a satisfying effect that makes fighting even more fun.

Age of Conan's combat is a violent and bloodsoaked affair.

One of my big complaints about MMOs in general is that you can't be the hero in your own game which makes storytelling difficult. Funcom addressed this the simplest way possible; they made part of the game a single-player story. Not long after getting to Tortage, begrudgingly referred to as "Noob Island" by many players, you'll be given the opportunity to turn the game to Night mode where you play through the story as a single-player game. You won't run in to any other players and the only quests you can get deal directly with your character's destiny and the political upheaval in Tortage. The story is surprisingly good and plays out differently for each of the four class archetypes. The result is always the same but your character's role in it will differ. The destiny quest line doesn't end with Tortage. You'll be returning to it again and again as you level your character.

In Day mode questing is run-of-the-mill MMO tedium. Fetch this, kill that, run my errands; these are the tasks offered by the Tortage locals. These mundane chores are made easier by the mini-map pinpointing exactly where you need to go to further a quest but the drawback of so many players all chasing the same dog's ear frequently rears its head. At times I found myself forced to camp spawn points for certain enemies, and one of the major quest areas called the Underhalls was like a grocery store before a hurricane. Players patrol the area ready to leap on and murder any guard or boss as soon as they are born into existence. It's strange to say it but the best part of the early levels in this MMO is the single-player experience.

In-game money is always a concern in these games but Funcom doesn't feel the need to constantly dip into the player's pocket. Weapons and armor don't degrade over time or take a durability hit when you die, ranged weapon ammunition like arrows and crossbow bolts don't run out, new skills and spells are free and traveling long distances costs nothing. This might change in the middle and higher levels but through the Tortage adventure you can stockpile the coin for that level 40 mount. There isn't much to spend money on in Tortage anyway. A few vendors with low-level armor and weapons can get you out of your rags and into some proper gear but the quest rewards will top anything the vendors sell.

Age of Conan surprised me. It just goes to show that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to bring new blood to an MMO - and AoC brings plenty of blood. It employs many of the conventions of the genre - quickbars at the bottom and the right for abilities, mini-map in the top right and quest icons over the heads of NPCs - while also adding new components to combat and narrative. We're going to give AoC some time to work through their launch and get some feedback from the players but we plan on giving it a full review at the three month mark. At this point what I can say is that Funcom is off to a terrific start.

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