Welcome back to Hyboria! Ok so hopefully my 1st review covered what to expect from Age of Conan in the first 20 levels and the fundamentals of game play.
So I had finally left Tortage and was sent to my home city (there are three home cities, one for each race). I entered this huge city with white sun-bleached buildings carved from the cliffs and it was truly stunning to see, and life seems to be brimming here from NPC’s unloading ships to players looking for quests, unfortunately due to the big draw distances and visually intensive area my frame rate hit an all time low here, especially in the harbor area. Frame rate continues to be a problem in Age of Conan, but some more adjusting and I was back on track. Another small disappoint was the loss of voice acting, but this is acceptable since it just isn’t feasible to have every NPC fully voiced over. So I explored this great city, crossing massive bridges or looking in amusement as these huge mammoths (player mounts) try to navigate their way threw the narrow streets. But after an hour or so of collecting quests/exploring and laughing at the guy in the stockades, I was off to “The Wild Lands of Zelta”. It’s worth noting here that Age of Conan is a heavily instanced game (a crossbred of wow/guild wars), which can be seen as both negative and positive for me it was positive since it still feels like an MMO but only with more control.
I had entered Wild Lands, with my newest bow in hand (which was uncannily similar to my old bow…but I will talk about that later) and enthusiasm coming from my ears. I was surprised here by how much more varied quest lines are here than in other MMO’s, sure there is the odd grind quest but most seem to have direct relevance to that zone (for example one quest in wild lands was to place heads of pikes, this was of course to warn off any attackers J…I have two heads impaled in my front lawn…and trust me no one ever breaks in!). In wild lands you will have your first proper grouping experience, with full teams and epic mobs to kill and loot, this was great fun and a good laugh with some great item drops. The instance was also extremely well designed with a very creepy atmosphere and varied mobs, as I said before the items that drop here are great (good looking, great stats the usual) but this cant be said for the rest of the levels…and this seems to be a big problem for Age of Conan a huge lack of itemization and I did find my self wearing the same armor for many levels and even when I did get an upgrade it was the same visually and this was a big disappointment for me.
Luckily Funcom has got on this problem right away adding a ton of new loot, and a lot of new PVP gear expected soon) this is a great point about funcom no matter what the problem is they are on the case before you even find it.
These levels also prove to be when you see how your character will play out the rest of the levels, you gain a lot of new skills and feat points and this makes all the difference. Where is first 20 levels you had a more broad skill set, you start too see your specialization shining more and more with each level, this seems to be especially true for rangers.
So overall I had a great time, leveling and experience more of what Age of Conan has to offer…the quality of the content just seems to be getting better but some lack of itemization is a problem. The core game play elements that funcom have created are a lot more defined with the addition of (2) more combo buttons and a lot of more skills at your disposal. I looked forward to exploring more of Hyboria and reporting back, but I have put together a small overview of these levels below.
Pros:
- A lot more character development.
- More stunning landscapes.
- Varied quest lines and interesting dungeons.
- Combat now is more complex with new combo buttons, more funJ.
- PVP more advanced a lot more guild conflicts.
Cons:
- Lack of voice acting.
- Some Frame Rate issues.
- Lack of itemization.
Some hints: Collect and sell every useless item since money is very hard to come by at these levels and a mount is almost impossible to attain at 40.
Verdict levels 20-40: 8.7/10
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