Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Preview

The guys at Eurogamer have written up a three-page hands-on preview of Funcom’s highly anticipated MMORPG with single player elements, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

Despite the clear similarities with action game battles, however, it would be disingenuous to characterise this as much more than a unique twist on the MMOG conventions. Under the surface, exactly the same dice rolls which have always determined battles in RPGs are still being made. As you level up and attain more powerful weapons, you’ll be able to tackle tougher enemies, just as normal.

Interestingly, the game also uses combos as a key part of its battles – tap a number of the action keys in the correct order and you’ll fire off a powerful attack, much like a beat ’em up. Later on, these combos even include Mortal Kombat style Fatality moves. Here, too, the action element is a layer over a more traditional mechanism. You learn these combos as you level up, and must equip them in slots before using them; in essence, they are melee combat skills which are fired off by a combination of button presses, rather than a mouse click or shortcut key.

In simple terms, then, the skill based element is an addition to the traditional RPG progression curve. However, we have no doubt that some players will become very adept at this aspect of the game. Indeed, for them there’s a unique PvP system called Drunken Brawling, which allows you to enter taverns and start fights (after imbibing specific drinks which improve or disimprove various battle statistics). This mode is entirely level- and gear-independent – a talented newcomer could easily hand a level 80 his backside on a platter – and sounds very much in keeping with the macho, chest-beating world of Conan.