GDC 07: AOC Preview @ IGN

GDC 2007: Age of Conan
Decapitations aplenty in our latest visit with the Conan team.
by Steve Butts

March 8, 2007 - GDC is a great chance to catch up with people you don't normally see. Like say, people who live in Norway, or Hyborea. That was the case this week when we caught up with Funcom and Conan. The gang was in town showing off the latest improvements to the game. Though the overall shape of Conan hasn't changed much, there were a few new features that definitely made us even more interested in getting our hands on the final version.

First up was a look at the new character creator. There is a triangular slider that lets you easily adjust your character's size, weight and muscularity. A range of ages gives you a little seasoning if you want and tons of sliders let you adjust your head to be exactly the way you like it. While we had seen some of that stuff before, we hadn't seen the brand new selection of tattoos, scars and piercings.

After finally getting off the galley and starting your new life in Conan, you'll find that the game has a new quest interface inspired by Dreamfall. Instead of simply popping up little text boxes to let players read about quests Conan will actually transition to cinematic style cutscenes with spoken dialogue and subtitles.

The close-ups and facial animations provide a real level of interest and drama to the missions. Just seeing the characters actually speak the lines makes such a huge impact. One particular mission had us talking with a man whose wife had been eaten by a crocodile. Since he didn't help her, he's afraid her spirit will haunt him. You can really get a lot of the tragedy and worry in the man's acting.

After seeing so many tropical jungle settings, we were glad to get a look at a more arid location. The rocky hills and sandy dunes contain lots of opportunities for adventure, particularly for Stygian players who use this area as a hub. There are a range of bandits, rebels and undead monsters in this zone, both roaming around the land and in the various group and solo dungeons located here. You can find a lot of work from the inhabitants of the two nearby cities.

There's also an interesting mission that tasks players with protecting a caravan that repeatedly runs between the cities. The merchant has two bodyguards already, but will require the help of friendly players to actually make it through the wilderness. Seeing the merchant show up without any bodyguards (and minus his two camels) will definitely remind players of the opportunities and dangers to be found outside of the city walls.

There's a particularly dodgy camp that you can visit here as well. In trying to fight your way through the rewards fond deep inside, you'll need to account for the basic roles that the enemies take on in the camp. There are guards, for instance at the outer edges of the camp. If you don't take them out quickly, they can run to get reinforcements to help keep you out. Managing the camp play should be one of the more exciting aspects of the PVE game.

Still, Conan is pretty much all about combat anyway, so there shouldn't be too much about the game that isnt' interesting. The basic action focus seems to succeed because of the real-time combat resolution. Rather than relying on the tired round-based format of most MMOs, Conan instead uses regular fighting game mechanics like those found in Jade Empire.

Most games have avoided real time combat because of the potential imbalance that lag and latency might cause for some players. Conan gets around this a couple of ways. First, players can stack attacks on top of each other, so they can play out automatically. The game will also rely on intelligent spacing of regional servers, and a new system that scales the packet transfer by reducing the view distance when lots of players are in the same area.

After seeing some of the combat, the gang at Funcom humored us by temporarily upping the fatality level on the combat system. The different death animations were spectacular. Not only did our guy seem to enjoy lopping heads off of dudes, but at one point he even stabbed some through the face. No in, you understand but through. There's plenty of blood though, even in the regular moves. It is Conan after all.

If it wasn't clear already, the gang at Funcom are aiming for an M-rating with this one. The combat alone would easily earn the game such a label but there's also some other sexually suggestive content that counts as well. Conan's is a world of wenches and head stabs. At the end of one quest, for instance, a girl you've rescued will offer to reward you with food, gold, or an night of soft, warm comfort. In true Conan fashion, she walks off once a paying customer shows up.

After all we've seen, we get more and more excited, not only about what Funcom is doing to bring the world of Robert E. Howard to life, but also to bring a more mature, more action focuses alternative to the rest of the MMOs out there.