Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Collector's Edition
From Eidos
Price:
3 new or used available from $169.88
Average customer review:
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Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #199 in Computer & Video Games
Brand: Eidos
Released on: 2008-05-20
ESRB Rating: Mature
Platform: Windows
Format: CD
Features
First Mature rated MMORPG: Savage, bloody, violent and sexy; delivering the true essence of Robert E. Howard’s original vision. Real Combat System: Fight mounted or on the ground. Team up in battle formations
Diverse Gameplay: Build cities, craft unique artifacts, explore a fantastic world, befriend others and master the use of magic, steel or bows. True Conan Experience: Explore King Conan's amazing universe.
Conan’s World: Enter a gigantic and savage world spread across the three nations of Aquilonia, Cimmeria and Stygia. Explore jungles, deserts, mountains, valleys, dungeons and cities all depicted in rich, realistic detail.
Form guilds and lay siege to hostile castles in massive PvP battles. Team up with other players in clans or face the Hyborian dangers all by yourself. Let your imagination run wild with thousands of options.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Based on the events and characters of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian stories, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is a fantasy themed massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that immerses players in a dark, expansive universe filled with ground-breaking brutal combat, dangerously intoxicating magical abilities, and the social and cooperative game features that MMORPG players crave.
The MMORPG finally matures
A troubled King Conan on his throne. View larger.
Test your metal in close combat. View larger.
Straddle War Mammoths & Killer Rhinos. View larger.
Lead your guild in player vs. player battles. View larger.
Explore the pleasures & pitfalls of the Hyborian Age. View larger.
Set in the later years of Conan's life, after he has famously become king by his own hand, the game centers around the fragile state of Conan's rule in Aquilonia. Surrounded by enemies and hostile nations, Conan's rule hangs by a thread and in the end, it's up to players, either singly or backed by their guilds to turn the tide for or against the embattled king.
Massively Multiplayer Gaming for the Adult Player
One of the most highly anticipated MMORPGs in recent years due to the strength and familiarity of the Conan franchise across a variety of major media, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is the first of several releases planned for the franchise, all of which are aimed at an adult audience. Firmly rooted in the savage, bloody, violent and sexy Hyborian universe, players can expect a graphically beautiful game blended with gritty gameplay that is true to both the barbarian hero from Howard's writings and the Schwarzenegger influenced version from books, movies and comics.
Available Cultures and Classes
Although Age of Conan contains a wide range of peoples, its playable cultures are currently limited to Aquilonians, Cimmerians, and Stygians. Within each of these players can choose from a selection of archetypal character classes, although available classes and subsequent subclasses are not necessarily the same within each culture. For example, archetypal classes for Aquilonians and Cimmerians are Rogue, Priest and Soldier, while Stygians are represented by Rogue, Priest and Mage. Further differences exist within subclasses for each. See the basic breakdown of all three cultures below:
Aquilonians: Internally divided, but united against their barbarian neighbors, the Aquilonians live lives on the edge. Their kingdom, with its prosperous cities, enlightened culture and religious freedom, is known as the "Flower of the West." Yet for all this and despite the power of King, Conan I, it is a land where culture clashes and unrest are always a threat.
Cimmerians: As the Hyborian Age comes to an end the northern barbarian clans of the Cimmerians know that the end of their time is drawing near too. King Conan I of Aquilonia is himself a Cimmerian, though not typical of his people. Although his life has been filled with wanderlust, his Kin care nothing for what occurs outside their clan territories.
Stygians: Masters of the magical arts and ruled by their consuming worship of the serpent-god Set, the Stygians excel at occult and diabolic lore. They learned long ago that true power lies in knowledge and in pacts with dark powers. This single-mindedness has allowed them become the only culture to harness the secrets of the Mage class and power that comes with it.
Modes Singleplayer as well as Multiplayer
Unlike most MMORPGs, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures includes a significant singleplayer experience as well as deep overarching multiplayer gameplay. This is an atypical MMORPG feature, but one that has a purpose. Players enter the game as a lowly galley slave with no memory of his/her past, and over the first five to 20 levels of singleplayer action build the skills necessary to survive in the game's multiplayer levels. During this time you will traverse a variety of rich environments including jungles, deserts, mountains, valleys, dungeons and cities packed with NPCs, beasts and monsters, before eventually leveling up and moving back to your chosen culture's homeland. Because the only character-related choices that players have to make at the game's opening are their looks, clothing and culture, this singleplayer mode is important in deciding what class and subclass to pursue and thus the level of impact your character will have in greater multiplayer portions of the game.
In-game levels 20 and above are strictly multiplayer. 20-40 introduce players to guilds. 40-60 deal with large scale combat. 60-80 have the player interacting with King Conan and levels 80 and up represent end-game play. Here gameplay changes as social aspects of MMORPG gameplay take over on a large scale.
Real-time Combat That Takes Queues from the FPS
Traditionally MMORPGs have utilized a mix of auto and turn-based functionality in their combat systems, but Age of Conan dispenses with that, instead drawing inspiration from FPS/action games. Firmly rooted in the brutality of the Hyborian universe, game developer Funcom has devised an action-based system that not only provides the sense of actually being in the fight, but also requires the player to participate in it. That means no simple targeted attacks. Players can attack and defend from nearly any position in real-time, whether on the ground or atop a mount, while standing still or on the move. It's a recipe for carnage and one that fits right into the world of Conan.
The combat system in Age of Conan comes in three forms: drunken brawling, mini games like CTF and massive Player vs. Player battles, which lets you engage in siege combat to defend or attack a city. All are easy to learn, but difficult to master, providing hours worth of play and replay value and are the core of this new cutting edge MMORPG.
Additional items included in the Collector's Edition
Hand-finished, metal-embossed oversized collector's box with inlay page and individually numbered holographic sticker
Leather map of Hyboria (faux) 14" x 20"
The Ring of Acheronia (exclusive in-game item)
Unique Bonus DVD featuring trailers, behind the scenes, developer diaries, and rich artwork
Official Age of Conan soundtrack CD
Art Book (128 pages)
Five free guest passes giving friends online access to the game for a limited time
The Drinking Cape (bonus in-game item)
System Requirements:
Minimum Specifications: Recommended Specifications:
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz or equivalent Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or equivalent
RAM: 1GB 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or equivalent
Video Memory: 128MB 512MB
DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
Hard Drive Space: 30GB of Free Space
Other: Broadband connection required for online gameplay
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Customer Reviews
Wait, or expect frustration
I just cancelled my pre-order of this game. Have been (trying) to play this product in beta and it is the most buggy software I've ever seen. In addition, Funcom is providing 0 technical support at this time. I'll wait until the product has more polish if I purchase it at all.
Welcome to the 4th Generation of MMORPGs
Pre-ordering a game is something I don't take lightly. If I have an existing game account, there's no question. I'll pre-order an expansion or an upgrade because I'm going to play the game anyway, so why not have uninterrupted access to every new feature? Plus, most companies offer in-game bling or a grind-enhancer of some sort.
The best one I ever got was for pre-ordering one of the eleventy-million Everquest expansions (I forget which). The bonus was a box of potions - 10 shots of instant full health, and 10 shots of instant full mana. That doesn't sound like much, but for an existing top-end character with 15k hp or mana, that's like a gift from the gods for your character. 10 "get-out-of-stuff-free" cards and 10 "caster-second-winds" could turn a raid wipe into a big win. Along with EQ's free mounts and +XP% potions, they were some of the best pre-order bonuses I've seen in 9 years of MMO.
Of course, there's plenty of useless vault filler for bonuses, too - the "Satchel of Abu Kabar" (8 slot bag with a lil weight reduction, no-drop and only one character per account could claim) from EQ, or the crystal and shadow furniture sets - all around ugly in your choice of gray or bright blue - from UO come to mind.
Funcom as a company did okay with their pre-order bonuses for Anarchy Online - a fantastic game, btw. For their Shadowlands release, they gave away apartments with a view of the central city off the expansion. That being said, I'm excited that they've decided to make the pre-order bonus for Age of Conan a *real* incentive to purchase. There are some fantastic rewards for the collector's edition and the standard release. The Amazon.com pre-order bonus is an amazing Amazon Curved Bow - looks great and is supposed to pack a whallop for mid-level characters.
Personally, I ordered the collector's edition from GameStop to get the mammoth and the bag along with my pre-launch access. Now, almost 80 bucks for the CE is more than I usually like to spend on a game - I'm no warlord rolling in furs and drinking out of gold-plated skulls. Considering I'm jazzed enough launch a community site (clanoptera.org), I figured getting I'd get the CE since it would give me more to write about
This is a really big deal for me. I've played more MMORPGs since 1999 than I can acurately recall off the top of my head, and I beta-tested about half of those. I usually wait until about 6 months post-launch before buying a game from a new franchise because I like to give the Devs the opportunity to work the kinks out of the code before handing over my hard earned cred. "The Matrix Online" is a perfect case in point. It took them almost a year to get their crap together, and to this day, almost 4 years after launch, it's barely more than a time-suck with great graphics.
Age of Conan is a different story. I've read articles and interviews that have impressed me. I appreciate the depth of committment to story and quality of the game experience. I absolutely appreciate that they're going to open servers that cater to a variety of gaming styles - PvE, PvP, and RP-PvP. This means a lot to a RP-PVPer who experienced sheer heck in "Teh W0r1d of W4rcr4f7!!11one."
I particpated in the PvP Beta (and will be joining the open beta today) and found the game world stunning in its complexity and scope. It's big and it's beautiful. The game play is easy to learn and difficult to master, with a learning curve that is both encouraging and engaging. The system requirements are a little on the steep side, but this looks to be a line drawn in the sands of the MMORPG world, and it's positioned to set the standard for Generation IV of the MMO genre games.
The early access is a real coup in the world of MMO launches, as folks who order online tend to not receive their product by launch date. This pre-access allows for 10 days of unrestricted access while the happy customer waits for the arrival of their box with the game key.
All in all, I look forward to a smooth launch, an immersive gaming experience, and a more mature community than the average MMOG.
Thanks for reading!
UPDATE: Open beta is going swimmingly. At 1440 X 900 in the DirectX 9 version (I'm running Windows XP), the game runs at between 46 and 65 FPS outside of town, and from 40-50 FPS in a crowded area of the starting city. There have been server load crashes, but in a stress test, that's to be expected.
I've leveled 3 characters to the max allowed this beta (13) - A Tempest of Set, a Bear Shaman (both priests) and a Guardian (Soldier type). All three progressed with relative ease - the powers are really balanced well. The Tempest of Set, more casting oriented, does AoE damage, AoE Root, and a couple of Heals Over Time, while the Bear Shaman is more combat-oriented, with combo attacks for each attack direction. The guardian is all about being able to take lots of damage over long periods of time.
So far, the Tempest of Set is my favorite, but I'll try more classes this week and update again.
Though much of what AoC has to offer is either an upgrade or an offshoot of other MMO conventions (questing, for instance, providing the better gear rewards than standard drops), the combat system is truly unique. Every character has default hotkeys set up for three directional attacks:
Upper left, upper center, and upper right. In addition, while fighting, the player can see which of the three directions is being defended or shielded against, and by how much. For example, while I'm fighting a pirate, I may see him start with a shield symbol over his head and one to both the left and right of the character. That means he's prepared for an attack from any quarter. Once I start hitting him on one side, however, the shield symbols adjust - maybe 2 on the right and one on top with the left side being left open. It's at that point that the player wants to do a combo that attacks the left side, as the damage will not be so highly mitigated by the shielding.
It sounds complicated, but it's very visual and is quite easy to get into a second-nature rhythm after a few battles.
The world is separated into two complete versions - one for everyone that takes place during the day, and one that is strictly your own that takes place at night. During the day, quests and activities are available for group. At night (accessed from the Inn with a simple conversation with a quest giver), the world switches over to a series of stroyline quests where all the creatures, all the danger and all the rewards are yours and yours alone. It's during those night quests that the backstory of your character is filled in, and you can make a series of choices that put you into the center of the world's mythology.
It's really impressive.
I'll post more about the contents of the box set when it arrives (thanks for the feedback below).
normal edition & collector edition
whats different between normal edition and collector edition ? I wish you can put some information about it.
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