Hyborian Adventures … the story thus far in Age of Conan

Perhaps the main competition is real life commitments which is why after almost a month of playing, I’m still barely midway into the game at level 34 35 (ding!).

I rolled a Conqueror, a soldier archetype and one of the 12 classes in Age of Conan. At 34, I’m still guildless (this is the fault of Kiven and Rico hrmp!) and although finding pick up groups for mid level quests are not as hard as I thought, knowing how MMO’s work, guilds are needed for end-game content especially for AoC’s PVP system which looks a lot like Age of Empires! I’m running on the Oceanic Bloodspire PVP server, so if there are any other Filipinos who are recruiting, I’m here! 😀

Here’s what I’ve been missing out:

For what it is, I’ve never played any other MMO this long other than World of Warcraft. I guess MMO’s are starting to adjust their gameplay to cater to both the casual and hardcore gamers using ladder rankings and specific PVP rewards without alienating the more casual gamers (I’ve gravitated towards “casual” as I’m usually out most of the time).

On a scheme of diminishing returns, MMO developers are basically reserving a slot in the 24 hours of a gamer’s life. Every gamer has a certain threshold with how many games he or she can play at any one given point. I for one consider myself very lucky to have time to play two online games – this one and Team Fortress II, which is a more come in and get out kind of thing. AoC is more long term. That should buy enough time for when Starcraft II and Diablo III come out in the next 2 years. So yeah, between that and offline PC games (trying to finish Mass Effect again) and the Wii .. geez.

People have been asking this early adopter how good the game is and if it can compare to World fo Warcraft. I’ve honestly been hooked to AoC’s combat system that requires you to do button combinations to perform special attacks. So combat is very much a real time thing where positioning and timing matters. There is actually a significant backstory to the game which I enjoy, something most MMO’s tend to leave out. As for the in game bugs, all there is to say is that this is the nature of early retail versions of massive multiplayer online games. WoW was like that in its first few months, so I figure things can only go up from here. It’s a damn good game – a huge breath of fresh air from the other MMO’s we’ve seen. The only other game that’s as high in anticipation would be Warhammer: Age of Reckoning which is coming out this September.

Do you still have the time to play PC games or do you really make time for gaming by hook or by crook?