Curse.com has a great preview of Funcoms upcoming MMORPG Age of Conan. I thought that I would take this time to highlight some of the preview comments regarding Age of Conan.

Age of Conan is currently scheduled for launch on March 25, 2008. It is currently in beta and is being tested by over 10,000 beta testers. Since Curse’s last previe it noted that the combat system has been overhauled greatly and is now less confusing to new players. The combat system has been updated to make it much easier to determine which combinations you are going to trigger.

The second area that has changed most drastically is the character creation. Additionally, video options have become more robust as well as the audio and interface options.

Curse.com also stated that the Age of Conan class selection process has been drastically overhauled. No longer do you start as a Commoner, and then work your way to your final class. Instead, you choose your final class at the beginning and you work through single player quests to unlock new skills for your class. Funcom calls these “destiny quests.” These destiny quests will continue all the way up to level 80, the current max level for Age of Conan. These destiny quests also tell the story of Hyboria and King Conan.

Age of Conan Feat System:

Age of Conan now includes a feat system. This feat system is similar to World of Warcraft’s talent system. There will be multiple tiers of feats which get unlocked as you put more points into each tree. Each class gets two trees and a third tree, which is tied to your class archtype. You will begin to acquire the points at level 10, and it currently has a maximum of 65 total points. According to curse.com you will be able to unlearn feats by simply clicking a button. Funcom does not plan to charge players for unlearning feats.

Age of Conan Character Creation:

Cursed.com was very impressed with Age of Conan’s character creation system. You will be able to choose your nationality, and distinguish yourself with over 35 different customization options. This character customization options will make sure that each character in Age of Conan is truly unique looking.

Age of Conan Combat:

Combat has been changed at lower it levels to make it much easier to start fighting. Age of Conan has gone from five fighting directions down to three fighting directions. In order to activate a combination you first have to trigger the combination. Then follow through by swinging in a particular direction. There is also a new system that has been added to the game called “shielding”. The shielding system provides a graphical representation of how your target is defending themselves. Once you start attacking an enemy from one direction, it will begin to defend itself from attacks in that direction. This reduces the damage that you to that location.

Age of Conan PvP:

Age of Conan will have two types of PvP combat. The first type, your standard player versus player in the world of Hyboria. The second player versus player system will be mini-games such as capture the flag and other battlegrounds type scenarios. Mini-games will come in two types, ranked and skirmish. Ranked matches will allow you to build up your character’s ranking within these mini game PvP competitions. Players will be able to join these mini games from anywhere in the world by simply opening their player versus player search window. This will drastically decrease the amount of time having to stand around and waiting in queues. You can go off and fight your battles anywhere and decide to join in the mini-game at any time. Once you’re done with your mini-game, you can simply be placed back to where you joined the match from.

Age of Conan End Game Content:

According to the developers of age of Conan the end game content will include both content for player versus player and player versus environment. The player versus player content will include two types of dungeons: outdoor dungeons and indoor dungeons. These dungeons will also scale in difficulty based upon your group size, which is a very cool feature that most MMOs do not contain.

Age of Conan Raids:

Funcom has confirmed that Age of Conan will have raids. Currently raid groups are cappped at 24 people.

I hope you enjoyed this summary of curse.com’s recent preview of Age of Conan.