Step into the Age of Conan (Hyborian Adventures)

Funcom, the creater of the renowned Anarchy Online, is at the helm of one of the most anticipated games of the year (if not the most anticipated in the realm of massively-multiplayer online games). However, there is a veil of mist surrounding exactly what it is that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures actually consists of. Is it an MMORPG? What makes it different from the big players in the field right now? Is it going to be full of little kids, or can we expect a more mature audience given the subject matter?

We won’t know about the playerbase until the game actually hits, but we can at least try to tackle those first two questions.

First: Is Age of Conan an MMORPG?

Strictly speaking: no, it’s not an MMORPG. The designers have instead gone with the label of “Online Action RPG” (OARPG?). Why is this the case, though? The game is definitely massive, it’s definitely multi-player, and you’re definitely playing the role of your avatar throughout the entire of the game, working to new levels and achieving new gear and experiences.

There is a certain stigma that goes along with labelling your game as it truly may be, though. There are many features of the upcoming game which deviate drastically from the preconceived notions of exactly what an MMORPG. These notions, which have been hewn into the minds of the countless World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and other big players, are sometimes misleading to the true intent of what it means to be an MMORPG.

For example: One of the main selling points of AOC:HA is that Funcom has created the first 20 levels of the game as box-to-play (meaning that once you buy the game itself, you can play this portion of the game forever, even if you don’t pay a monthly subscription). These same levels also constitute a completely single-player experience, grounding the player in the basics of gameplay and combat before unleashing them into the wild with other players. This is a very unique approach to subscription, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the months after the game is released. Surely becoming the first person to reach 20 and enter the online world will be a rush for some hardcore power gamer out there.

Second: What makes it different from the big players in the MMO field right now?

Combat

One of the main selling points of this game is the combat system, which is radically different from what other games in the genre have used. Traditionally, RPGs have been based on the the fact that every aspect of the character’s avatar reveals something about how he will perform in combat. His level and gear affect the hit rate of others against him, as well as his power relative to them. His spells and class hint as his best placement within a group. When it comes down to it, after all of the fancy effects have been swept away and you’re left with the pure combat, what is there? There’s a player, that player’s stats, their target, and their target’s stats. This concept of target leaves things like glancing blows, head shots and other things we’ve come to know and love in the FPS world completely up to chance. Simply having a target shifts the focus of a game away from player skill and reflexes in combat to, in large part, player intellect as far as combining items to be the most well-prepared (and then online gear databases and blogs take away the intellect by offering optimal builds and 100% information on item stats etc: thus, World of Warcraft). In these MMORPGs, combat is decided by the dice, and aided by your gear (of course there are variations on this, but that’s the main idea).

The difference between this and AOC, though, is that AOC doesn’t have a targeting system. According to GameSpy:

Age of Conan will feature what the company calls the “Real Combat” system. This is basically a point-and-click melee system in which every enemy is divided up into six different areas that player can swing at. Players choose where they wish to swing along with which weapons, spells, or techniques they wish to use, and then watch as their avatar completes the action. As players get better at using the system, they will find combinations of abilities, swing styles, and target points that string together to make more and more devastating attack combos. While player stats and items bonuses will play a role in this system, the idea of “Real Combat” is to bring more player skill into MMO fighting.

While this kind of combat system isn’t exactly a new idea, it is being applied rather uniquely in this game. It will be very interesting to see how the game server environment performs with this kind of combat system, and how much whining there will be in the general forums about how people couldn’t hit their targets because of a lag issue.

Melee isn’t the only kind of combat we’re looking at in AOC, either. There is a vast system of magic and spellcasting, which relies on a foundation of “Spellweaving”, an extremely interesting concept and one that is extremely lacking in modern RPGs.

Spellweaving is the art of stringing together a series of spell to create one massive spell that will produce devastating and otherwise extreme results.

And a more descriptive account of what Spellweaving actually entails:

The player will start the spellweave by activating their spellweave ability. This places them in a trance-like state where they cannot move and the only actions they are allowed to perform are adding more components to the weave. Once in the spellweave the player can add as many spells into the weave as they can manage or want to. The maximum number of spells that can be called into a weave is dependant on the players level. Deactivating the ability will then cast the spell and produce the results […] Spellweaving is almost a balancing act. How much power can you summon forth without incurring some ancient curse or other mysterious ailment? The risk of this depends on how powerful a weave you are performing based upon the power of the spells you are trying to combine and their level

Technology

Besides gameplay issues, Age of Conan boasts an incredible line-up of graphics and back-end gaming breakthroughs.

One of these is the so-called BCC (behavior control center) which is used to control even the most minute of details within the game world. According to IGN:

A new behavior control center has been designed from scratch for Conan. The system pulls in all control data and links it with character actions (combat, animations, emotes, formations etc.). The proprietary BCC system is data-driven, and gives designers full control over character behavior, as opposed to a programmer coding it.

The reason we decided to focus on this system for Conan was to speed up the processes of development, and give the designers and world designers more control over NPCs and making “drama” in the game. A simpler explanation of this would be something along the lines of giving the designer easier ways of being a puppet master instead of a programmer being puppet master and builder.

The game also features state-of-the-art lighting and shadowing methods, including the ability for any two objects to cast shadows on one another. This, coupled with an incredibly detailed sky filled with clouds blocking light from the sun, could result in amazing views and ever-changing lighting schemes against a busy cityscape, or create an incredible amount of tension while riding through a heavily-wooded area in the dusk hours.

Conan’s development team seems to be taking weather very seriously, as well, aiming for a fully-immersive experience (even better than the weather in Anarchy Online):

I still vividly remember the first time I ventured into Newland desert in Anarchy Online, and saw a huge desert storm approaching. As my sight almost went white - or brown - from sand, I got that truly epic feeling; “Wow, this is something I have never experienced in a game before.”

The game designers are also utilizing a beefed-up version of the ACG (auto content-generation) system made popular by Anarchy Online. With this, they will be able to create vast dungeons in seconds, which can be further refined into static playable areas with missions and quests with a relatively small amount of effort from the design team. Hopefully this will effect vast amounts of content, as well as well-thought-out and well-scripted events in that same content. One of the things that is so painful about online games these days is the lack of content, simply because it’s so hard to make an environment like that from scratch. With an ACG, this process is automated and all that’s left for the designer to do is tweak what the program has come up with.

Another interesting thing to note about the graphics in Conan is the ability for 3-D models to blend animations together. Traditionally, when you wanted to perform a new action while an action was already in progress, there is a distinct graphical “pop” or discontinuity which can be clearly seen by the player. This is caused by a limitation in most 3-D engines where one animation must be finished before another starts, otherwise the new one will simply start from the character’s neutral state. In conan,

multiple animations can be blended together to make for a much more realistic movement pattern, which will change dynamically and gracefully according to the input of the player.

Progression

The natural progression of the player from playing the game solo to playing it online is complemented by the game’s archetype and class system, which allows a player to choose one of four archetypes at level 5, and then a class within the selected archetype at level 20, the last level of offline play.

The possible archetypes and classes are:

• Priest
  • Druid of the Storm
  • Scion of Set
  • Priest of Mitra
  • Bear Shaman
• Mage
  • Demonologist
  • Lich
  • Necromancer
  • Herald of Xotli
• Soldier
  • Guardian
  • Conqueror
  • Dark Templar
• Rogue
  • Ranger
  • Assassin
  • Barbarian

Player versus Player

The PvP system is very deeply rooted within the game itself, and all servers in the game include areas in which consensual player-versus-player combat can occur. Though these spots exist on each server, there are plenty of other places for players uninterested in the PvP scene to play, offering a unique approach to PvP among today’s top MMO players. The game also includes other modes for PvP combat, including Siege PvP, PvP Mini-games, and drunken brawling. Drunken brawling is just like it sounds, which is more indication that this game will likely receive an ‘M’ rating and be avoided by most of the younger crowd.

You will be able to go into a tavern, buy alcohol and get seriously drunk, but you have to be aware of the limits. Being drunk has obvious visual effects. The more you drink the more you stand, but the less chance you have of hitting! Your experience level and equipment plays no part in these fights, and it all depends on how well you hit, what you use as your weapon and how drunk you really are.

AOC also features the ability to build entire cities with the help of your guild, as well as the ability to siege other guilds cities. This is a very interesting feature when compared to the types of PvP combat systems people are used to seeing from big name MMORPGs.

You and your guild can build your very own city. By claiming a piece of land you get the opportunity to erect a wide range of buildings and city walls. Your guild and its members will have to collect resources such as wood, stone, iron and gold to make the city of your dreams come true. Building such a beacon of civilization naturally attracts unwelcome visitors in the form of invaders, so be prepared to defend it from powerful computer controlled enemies.

Adding the RTS-type qualities into the game with the siege and city-building activities, as well as the FPS aspect with the player-skill based combat system is going to breath a very welcomed breath of fresh air into the MMO genre, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all comes out.

Siege PvP also looks extremely promising. In the Border Kingdoms (the same place where the open PvP occurs), there are battlements and real estate upon which battlements and other holds can be built. These can be guarded, defended, and overtaken by guilds who wish to exert their prowess upon others.

Battlekeeps are structures that players can build and maintain in the Border Kingdom. Throughout the Border Kingdom there is a limited amount of areas where battlekeeps can be built. Because of the limited amount of space, other guilds will most surely come and try to take it away from you or even destroy it completely through the use of siege engines such as catapults

And, because Funcom is realistic and realizes that not everyone has time to stand guard at a fortress for 24 hours a day, these battlements will only be siege-able during very specific time periods. An additional benefit to PvP play is the introduction of a Blood Money system. This system allows players to kill others, and collect a certain kind of currency each time they do. This Blood Money can be used to purchase equipment and benefits that are not available for purchase with regular currency.

Third: Is it going to be full of little kids, or can we expect a more mature audience given the subject matter?

Regarding the general level of maturity of the audience, the official website has this to say:

In the true and barbaric vision of Robert E. Howard, ‘Age of Conan’ promises to bring mature online players something dark, new and refreshing. This is no cartoony fairytale, ‘Conan’ is made by grown-ups, for grown-ups, giving online gamers the chance to unleash the ultimate havoc and fury.

So, where does Conan fit into all of this? According to the official website, Conan is the king of the land in which the game takes place. However, that probably won’t stop close to 94% of the entire population from trying to name their character something that looks or sounds like “Conan”.

Personally, you’ll be able to find me under the name “Conaane” or “Leggoolaaaaas”.