Age of Conan Preview

This game looks fucking HOT. It got me interested in Conan and I'm reading the original stories by Howard right now, and man, they are GOOD.

speaking of Robert E Howard's stories you can read the best of them online:

http://www.blackmask.com/Pulp_Fiction/Robert_E__Howard/index.html

someone please explain to me why there's 6 million WoW players (most who grumble about excessive grinding and poor PVP) why this game doesnt get more attention ..it surely deserves it

for the lazy, details on pvp:

PVP info

I absolutely love this idea:

drunken brawling: Most of the taverns in Age of Conan will be PvP zones, but the system will be quite different than that in the outside world. Rather than sword battles and duels to the death, players will instead swig mugs of ale and smack each other over the head with cups and broken table legs. Losing the battle doesn't mean death -- it just means getting tossed out by the bouncers. There will be no levels in bar fights. Everybody from level 20 to 80 will be on an even playing field.

more PVP (player vs player) :


- The second element in the game will be traditional battleground-style environments where players try to achieve particular goals against an equally matched opposing team. According to Godager, they're already testing out a basic capture-the-flag map and they're working on a whole lot more, including point defense and capture missions and siege warfare. "One of the hallmarks of Conan is the idea of 'massive combat,'" Godager said. "So we'll really be playing with that a lot, providing plenty of space for cavalry charges and big formations and offering gigantic killing fields where lots of players can get their heads chopped off."

PVE (player against enviroment):

For the PvE player, however, the bar brawls and battlegrounds are effectively invisible. The bigger question for them will be the rules that operate in the shared world. "We're actually going to have separate PvP and PvE servers, although our initial plan was not to have special rule sets." According to Godager, the decision was the result of intense lobbying by players, not a result of their game design. Hub towns and the regions around guild halls were always going to be PvP-free zones, and PvP servers will incorporate a "tier" system will limit the range of levels that players can attack with impunity. Attacking players outside of that range will trigger an "autolevelling" system that should give players a fighting chance to escape or perhaps even turn the table on attackers


Guilds:

Guilds will be able to find resource points out in the wilderness and start constructing various buildings including guild halls, craft halls, siege engine factories, social centers, marketplaces, and much more.


Raids and player built towns:

player towns will also attract enemies. Monsters will begin hiving near player towns, creating a mirror town that will gradually be added to over time. Once the monster town grows large enough (after three or four weeks), it will start launching raids on player towns. While having a horde of screaming monsters coming to burn down your town might seem incentive to cut down the monster population as soon as they appear, full blown monsters towns with the biggest armories will also offer the best raid targets because they'll have the best loot.

While only guild members can have towns, they need solo players and affiliated groups. These are players that can purchase services from them, as well as allies when monsters attack." For more casual or "solo" gamers, being affiliated with a player town offers them the chance to take on tougher monsters that drop better loot (whether defending a town or participating in a monster town raid) without the time commitment of either being in a guild or organizing a more formal raid on a static target.


crafting:

Crafters can create weapons, armor, potions, siege weapons, houses/walls, PvP specialist equipment, or weapon and armor enhancements.

Crafting will have a separate 20-level tier system and five levels of item quality. While everyone can craft, the highest quality items will be reserved for guild crafters with a town. Interestingly, players don't get experience for creating items. Instead, each level is achieved by going on a quest. "We didn't want players to have to grind crafting," Godager said. "Everything the player builds should be for sale or to support a guild, town, or battlekeep."




this offers so much more than most MMO's and doesnt feature annoying happy little elves and silly gnomes

*watches tumbleweeds drift by*