How The Game Is Played

Speed and Gore

So its been an interesting weekend. I played the new Age of Conan MMO up to 18th level, and I saw Speed Racer in IMAX. Below are some imrpessions of both:

Age of Conan.

This is the first (mainstream ) MMOLPRG that is rated M for mature. (There have been a few pure cybersex MMOs already. If you don't know what cybersex is, you probably don't want to.)

Being M rated effects it in some interesting ways. First off, it is the goriest MMO I've ever played. It has "fatailities" which are basically like "finishing moves" in Mortal Combat. Do the right things at the end of a combat and you chop the other guys head off, splatter your screen with blood, or trigger other serious gorefest animations.

I'm not a big fan of gore for gores sake but in thsi case, it works. Anyone who knows the original Conan source material knows that this is an important part of the genre. As such, it never feels gratuitous and actually is fun in a mildly sick way.

The game also contains sexual references. I have yet to see an overt sex scene but there is no doubt that the charcters have a sexuality. The NPCs will often tlak in innuendo (the females at least. Which feels a bit odd if your playing a hetero-female character.)

Though i havent tried it, Im told if you take all the clothes of a PC there is actually a naked body under it. There is actually a potentially good reason for this. Most MMOs put "molded on " underwear on character models, like a barbie doll. The problem with this approach, ask any woman, is that one set of underwear dopes not go with all types of outer clothing. Different clothes call for different undergarments. By having a real anatomy, a 3D model cna be dressed in any sorts of clothing and "look right." I have yet to see enough "social clothing" in the game to really taje advantage of that but Im still in newbie land.

Thats the next thing about the game thats unusual. It takes a LONG time to get out of newbie land. Your there til level 20 which is almost half of the current Max level of 50. But it doesn't really feel that bad cause the newbie space is huge compared to many games and the work your given is varied with an interesting, deep plot line behind it.

This has to be one of AoC's stroingest points in fact. The plot is VERY strong and well written with multiple threads that all come together nicely in your story. The quests are, for the most part, directly related to that story and advance it in interesting ways. None of the quests feel like repeats of previous ones and there are very few that feel like "time wasters." All in all the newbie quests are an outstanding feature of AoC.

Another interesting difference is that AoC has two modes, day-play and night-play. In the newbie areas, day-play is multi-player while night-play is single player. Your main story is moved ahead through night play. i *think* the design reason for this is that, as people get higher level characters, it will prevent them using them to "twink" beginning players through the main starting quests.

A final thing I really appreciate about AoC, is that the M rating cuts way down on the kiddie factor. It doesn't eliminate it, especially late at night. (Parents, do you know what your kids are up to on their computers late at night? For some of you, the answer seems to be no.) But in general it makes for a much more enjoyable social environment for adults.

AoC is, in the end, a niche product. It is intended for and theoretically limited to a mature market who like gritty fantasy. Time will tell how big its niche really is, but its a worthwhile contender in the arena thatw as obviously crafted carefully and with love.

Posted at 01:00PM May 27, 2008 by gameguy in General  |