When Age of Conan was first announced I squealed like a little girl in anticipation for her first sleep over. However, I found that all the hype that flowed around the net was little more than a hope for something that may very well drown itself from its own weight, but there is hope.

First I would like to point out that many of the reviews you see on the net are total bull****. Gamespy for example, responsibly posted reviews on the day of beta release yet posted said reviews 8 hours before the servers were even ready to play on. The cookie cut reviews offer what I consider a rather hopeful perspective on a game that sits only two weeks from release. 

The open beta only allows one to reach level 13, which could be likened to playing until level 10 on WoW - almost meaningless when it comes to understanding a class. One can reach level 13 easily in a few hours, though I did notice a ‘EXP Bonus’ icon on my experience bar that had a subscript number on it for the amount of kills or quests it would give me extra experience for. I didn’t do all the calculations but its safe to say a normal person would easily be able to reach 20 within two days time with average playing time of 3-4 hours a day. Please note that level 20 is the cap for the ‘early access’ 3-day bonus you get if you pay an extra 5 bucks, so if you consider yourself a normal player (hardcore players can probably get all 12 classes to 20) then consider this fact before buying early access.

As for the classes themselves, I do not want to bash or praise any particular class simply because it would be rather foolish of anyone to expect class balance at this level. That said, I found my guardian able to solo everything till the cap but to be weaker than my ranger, and the priest class having much more difficulty at these levels for soloing - expect to group. A monkey at level 6, with [Boss] next to his name, killed me 4 times in a row as I desperately attempted to slay him. I moved on. The casters are interested but sadly it seems spellweaving is being modified so you no longer have a chance to kill yourself and go to hell, I was looking forward to that. 

So far the world is not as open as I would have hoped for it to be, but it is more open than any tutorial area I have ever played in. From 1-20 it seems that players have the option to play single or multiplayer simply by changing the ‘time of day’. Night time is solo play and day time is solo play with other players running around lagging you. The only other differences are the quests offered. During the night one does his ‘destiny’ quest which pretty much gets you into the story. For any of you that have ever played any of the Longest Journey games, you will find the dialogue to be similar and quite fulfilling - though I did find that the game takes no consideration to the gender you play with. During one quest where I save a woman who has just been attacked by ‘brutes’ and tied up, she offers herself ‘later’ to both my male guardian and female priest. Funcom is all for equal opportunity it seems. Overall though the quests are nothing super special so do not come in expecting The Longest Journey, its an MMO! 

To graphics. The graphics are VERY good, there is no doubt that all you computer buffs will find even your amazing rigs pushed to the limit with this game. As for the “play Oblivion you should be able to play this”, its a bit more complicated than that. I play Oblivion fine on my computer with near max settings but found myself going against a wall when logging into AoC. First off, those with graphics cards from ATI will find that no matter how many hundreds you have paid you will still go from 60 to 1 fps for no reason - consistently. Apparently it has to do with the card’s method of horizontal texturing. I happen to have an ATI, I fixed this problem by mainly aiming my camera downward as I moved so I was staring at my avatar’s bald head. Funcom understands and will hopefully fix this soon. If you have Nvidia, you are lucky because the game was literally made for you. The graphics options are rather plentiful but I did run across a lot of terms that even I was not familiar with. DEVs did mention that the beta version did not have the Cheetah Engine implemented, which should help lower end rigs. Mainly (for everyone), do not expect a smooth start when you first log in - here are common problems and fixes.  

-Game only shows up with a black screen and sound. Fix: start in windows mode and change settings back to what you want in game, this should fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again.

-Stuck on a quest for whatever reason. Fix: log out and wait a while, I had to wait a day before being able to go back to a reset quest position. (Report that you are stuck on a quest spot and explain the situation, if it is a known problem a GM will fix it. Or the system is so amazing that it does it for you, who knows). 

-A NPC is talking to you but you cannot see what s/he is saying or offer any responses. Fix: walk away and come back and try and talk again.

-You are banned for jokingly saying in global chat that you are selling gold. Fix: None, do not do this!! No Joke, I saw two people banned so far. 

Quick Overview:

Pro:

-The graphics ARE nice, very beautiful landscapes and I must say I have never seen more realistic water reflections and animation as I swim through it. 

-Fun combat that has great depth even at low levels, leaves me only imagining what all there is to do at level 80. 

-Graphic glitches so that even though you have clothes on with female characters, going underwater exposes everything. 

-Nice patching program and rapid response allows for quick fixes and fast installs. The level of performance of the game increased by at least 50 percent over the past few days as a direct result of the patches implemented. 

-PvP is great fun even at this level. Knock-backs are my new best friend. 

-Stealth is pretty interesting, lighting has a lot to do with it. Materials that make noise as you walk over it has a chance of exposing you.

-One can climb

Con:

-ATI users, poor support. 

-Horrible communication between developers and gamers so far. Example, 8 minutes before server start time they announced that there would be a last minute patch that lasted 8 hours to implement. Also the “e-mail that will be sent shortly” to explain the situation came 3 hours later with more bad news. 

-Security overlook. Links to accounts led to a http port rather than https even though the https port existed. This caused several dozen accounts to be stolen due to keylogger software on the client side. Probably still player’s problem but still a preventable situation. 

-Bug after bug after bug. Its expected, but 2 weeks from release?

-Didn’t see the mounted combat

-Rangers ‘manual’ aim is more like ‘kinda-like manual aim’ and have only slight improvements on range. 

-May be stealth but it seems that out of no where NPCs spawn and kill you when you least expect it. 

-Random disconnects exists.

If you are a perfectionist spoiled over what took Blizzard and Mythic years to ‘fix’, I strongly recommend NOT getting the game until at least a week after release. Funcom has dedicated DEVs but it will be a little while before the game hammers down all these glitches. Otherwise, the servers handle well under pressure and overall one will still be able to play - though expect frustrations and downtimes. I will one day get this game but I am far from excited about it. It is fun, but it will be awhile before it becomes a good game.