Age of Conan is a MMO based on the Conan fantasy license originally created by the famed author Robert E. Howard. Set in 10.000 BC in the world of Hyboria.  You can engage in guild warfare and embark on challenging quests which all stay true to the original written works by Robert E. Howard

Age of Conan is co-published by Funcom and Eidos. Eidos is known for publishing titles such as Tomb Raider and Hitman, while Funcom has extensive experience in the MMORPG field with the game Anarchy Online.

Game Status: Closed Beta (Check Preorder Status!)
Release Date: Released May 19th 2008
System requirements: (2-18-08)
Required
OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Recommended
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Vdeo Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

Enhanced for: 64-bit processors, multi-core
Supports Parental Controls on Windows Vista

Platform: PC development initially
Cost: $49 for game client, ~$14.99/month for subscription
Subscription: Monthly subscription fee, 1st 30 days are free
Rating: Mature ( Graphic violence, Partial nudity)
The censorship is based on the dvd key, german version is cut, you will see blood, but no fatalities like chopping heads and limbs off. US version will be uncut
European Distribution: Yes (German, French, Spanish, English)
There will be European and US servers. If you buy a US version of the game, you can only join on US servers, if you buy a Eu version (UK, german, french, spanish), you can join any Eu server. You could buy a european version of the game in the US, but then you can only join EU servers and will get higher pings and the timewindow for sieging will be late night/early morning for you.
Game Cards: Yes
Customizable User interface: Yes

Fantasy

Conan is a fantasy character created by author Robert E. Howard. Howard wrote a series of stories during the 1930's which took place in the fictional world of Hyboria, where the protagonist was a mighty and fearsome barbarian called Conan. The Howard stories all follows Conan’s life as he evolves from a young warrior and thief to finally become king of Aquilonia, the mightiest nation of Hyboria.

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Age of Conan will feature a limited single-player portion at the start of the game. Here you advance through a deep and involving story, where the focus is on you, your character and your place in the world. After a while you will start meeting other players, but you will be able to switch between single-player and multiplayer during the first twenty levels of your character's life. After that, its all massively multiplayer.

The level cap is 80. Forty normal skill levels (standard MMORPG XP) and forty different player-versus-player levels . You gain PvP levels by fighting battles with other players

Fighting between players is consensual because it is limited to certain areas of the game world. If you want to avoid player-versus-player combat, all you have to do is avoid these areas. There are other areas to engage in player-versus-player combat. You can, for instance, pick a fight at a tavern once you get drunk enough, or you can get involved in mini-games in the arenas.

One of the key features of Age of Conan is the unique combat system, which is a huge leap forward for the genre both from a technological and a gameplay standpoint. Whereas fighting in most MMOs involves targeting by clicking something, initiating attack and then clicking a combination of icons, fighting in Age of Conan centers around something we call the Real Combat System. In this innovative approach to MMO melee combat you don't target anything directly, you actually move up to your foe and start striking your weapon in different directions in real-time, using directional keys or even a gamepad.

In ranged combat you will actually have to string your bow and aim manually from a first-person or over-the-shoulder viewpoint to strike your enemies.

Players will be able to create formations that will increase the participants damage output and defense rating, as well as giving special types of attacks. A formation will have a leader who can designate spots in the formation for players, and the players have to stand at the specific spot for the formation to reach its maximum potential. Formation combat will naturally be very useful in PvP battles, but will also play a vital role in PvE.

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. By using collected resources such as iron, stone and wood, players can build upon these battlekeeps, constructing walls and even stables to house the cavalry. It is also possible to add computer-controlled guards to these.

Server types:
(PVE, PVP, RPPVP).
There will be rules of etiquette and a restricted naming policy on RPPVP server

Groups:

* Small xp bonus for killing stuff
* 3 loot options: round robin, free for all,master looter.
* Quest items always drop for every groupmember with the quest
* Nearly all smaller caves or minidungeons (like the maze or acheronian ruins) have a hero mode (a challenging groupgame), because those dungeons are normally made for solo or minigroups.



Mounts:
There will be mounted combat in the game, where players can get hold of mounts such as horses and camels. You can fight from the backs of these great creatures – either with a sword or with a lance for maximum damage

* There will be a big choice of horses (5-10 in different colors)
* Differ in hitpoints, turn radius, stamina, speed
* All mounts can attack on their own and cause different damage
* Many spells can be fired from the back of a horse
* Its possible to get kicked of the horse during a fight
* The warmammoth and the rhino are nearly the same in stats, the rhino is more agile though and the warmammoth has more HP
* Mammoth and rhino are exclusiv preorder items atm
* Requirement for a mount is lvl40
* Mounts are inventory items, you can have many of them
* Currently mounts cannot be customized at release, but they will come up with something later. its unclear what a mount does, when you dismoount atm.



Stealth:

* Every class is able to stealth
* Different possibilites to detect a stealthed player:
- Stealth skill: raised with skillpoints
- Perception: if its higher then the stealth skill of a player, you detect him faster
- Noise: dependent of the gear you wear, the surface, the speed
- Viewcone: a stealthed player infront of you,will be detected easier
- Lighting level: easier to see a stealthed player at day
* There will be a interface which lets you see the lighting level

PVP

Anyone who is not in your group is attackable (they think about adding guildmembers to the non attack list no matter if they are in another group or solo)

There´s a pvp variation of all equipment stats

There will be a pvp ranking system which increases with pvp kills and decreases with pvp deaths

The highest ranked pvpers will be awarded with ingame items
different styles of CTF arenas, the ones we saw at CES etc were Stygian style maps, there will be more after launch

Besides CTF, there will be team annihilation

CTF battles involve battling it out with the other team in an 8 player, 4-vs.-4 format where you have 10 minutes to win the match completely, of which involves capturing the other team's flag three times before they capture yours the same number. (curse article)

There is also a Team Deathmatch type of instanced PvP, both with Ranked or Skirmish options. In Ranked matches, dying means you lose "PvP experience"

No death penalty besides loss of pvpranking and blood money. you don´t drop a tombstone when you die by another player.

See My AoC PvP Guide
Age of Conan PvP Guide: "Mama Said Knock You Out!"


Crafting

* Every character can learn one crafting profession
* You can only learn one crafting profession
* Current minimum level is 40, but they think about lowering it to 20
* Crafting profs are: weaponsmith, armorsmith, alchemist, gemcutter, architekt.
* Crafting experience will only be gained through crafting quests
* Recipes will be always usable (are non consumable)
* Leveling crafting will be fast (approx. some hours)
* Nearly all items have 2 variations, crafted with normal resources and with rare. only craftable items have sockets for gems
* Sockets come in different sizes, 4 per item are usable
* Gems cant be removed, once equipped
* Most of the crafted items or even all wont have stats like strength or inteligence. they´ll have ground values.
* Crafted items without gems are not comparable with very good looted items, however they are more flexiable then looted items. they are good against opponents with special resistances or weaknesses.
* Higher quality items can only be obtained from people who are in a guild and in a guildcity crafted in special crafting places.
* Crafting works everywhere
* The crafting process is automatic and you wont lose your crafting resources in the crafting process

Harvesting

* 6 harvesting profs (Mining, Prospecting, Skinning, Stonecutting, Weaving, Woodcutting)
* you can learn all harvesting profs at once
* every resource has 6-8 levels (i.e. for mining: bronze, iron,...)
* chance of getting a rare resource (within level) during harvesting
* resources are displayed on the minimap
* can be found in the city zones (crafting city and border kingdoms) and rarely in the world
* there is no plan to specialze in a specific resource
* there are additional resources, dropped by specific mobs
* Gemcutter and Alchemist harvest their resources through killed mobs
* harvesting nodes are specially designed with particle effects to make it easier to notice them

You don’t have to start making decisions regarding your profession until you’ve reached level five. At level 5 you pick an archetype. The archetypes are Soldier, Mage, Priest and Rogue. The classes that are available to you are determined from which archetype you choose and your race

There will be three difference races upon the launch of Age of Conan. In Age of Conan the three nations that are planned for launch are Aquilonia, Cimmeria and Stygia. Soldier
Guardian
Conqueror
Dark Templar

Priest
Priest of Mitra
Tempest of Set
Shaman

Rogue
Barbarian
Assassin
Ranger

Mage
Necromancer
Herald of Xotli
Demonologist

At one point there was supposed to be prestige classes: The Crafter, the Lord, the Commander and the Master. These however have been dropped. Benefits and abilities will now go into a more open and flexible system. Each of these has extremely valuable advantages that can be used both in solo play and in team play, and each has specific skills and benefits that can make a great difference. Examples include expand groups and use special formations during combat, building cities and gathering resources.

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