The age of conan

We fight for honor glory and destruction

thE START

6.1 Is there a single-player game in Age of Conan?
Yes, a part of the gameworld in Age of Conan will be single-player, but you always need to play online on our servers. Even though you are playing alone in an instance in the gameworld you still get the chance to communicate with your friends on the same server, as well as potentially thousands of other players.

Age of Conan is still a fully-fledged MMO, but we have taken some key lessons from the other games out there and decided to feature a limited single-player experience that in some ways plays out like a traditional RPG. When you first start out in the game, you will be spending the first hour or so completely alone before you stumble into the freebooter village of Tortage where you will suddenly start seeing other players. From here on you will be able to switch between single-player and multiplayer. During the day, you're always multiplayer, but during night you're all alone. You can switch between the two by sleeping at the inn. Once you reach level twenty and leave Tortage, then you will step into the massive MMO world where you're always multiplayer and where the day and night cycle is dynamic and independent of your actions.

6.2 Can I go into the bigger MMO gameworld right away?
One of the thoughts behind the single-player experience is to give you a unique and highly interactive story to get you going, a story that captivates you and intrigues you from the start. A story that is tailored to you and told in a fashion that really lets you be an important person in the game. Many other massive online games throw you into the world right away, and because of the nature of MMO games it can be quite difficult to get started and getting to grips with how it all hangs together. By letting you start out with limited single-player we're able to show you how the game is played in a more fun and structured fashion, without having to resort to often rather boring tutorial phases. Still, you can communicate with your friends, and it won’t take that long before you are able to meet other players.

6.3 Does the single-player experience have any other benefits?
Yes, absolutely. During the time it takes to complete the single-player experience your character will grow in strength and talent. He or she will evolve from nothing but a commoner, into someone who has mastered a class! As you then get ready to enter the even greater massive online world you will already be accustomed to the environments and have a much greater knowledge of how to play your character.

6.4 Why have you chosen to have a single-player part at the start?
We believe this is a new and better way of introducing MMO players into the gameworld. We felt that many online games out there are too difficult to get into, so we tried to find a new approach. The mix of a single-player experience inside a MMO gameworld is our attempt to do something about that. They form one unique whole though, so you will feel that you are playing one complete game.

6.5 How long will the single-player experience last?
Only the first hour or so of the game is completely single-player. Once you reach the village of Tortage, you will start meeting other players. You can switch between day and night by sleeping at the inn, and during day you will always be with other players, while during the night you will be all alone. At level twenty you leave Tortage island and head for the mainland, and from there on you will always be in a massively multiplayer environment.

6.6 Will I have to complete the single-player experience every time I make a new character?
This is something we are still tweaking. We realize that doing the single-player experience the second or third time may not be as rewarding as the first time, so you may be able to skip it one way or another. That being said, playing different archetypes during the single-player experience will offer different quests, experiences and opportunities, so there is definitely a high replay value.

6.7 Will I be able to meet and chat with other players in the single-player experience?
Yes, as you move forward you will gradually be able to meet other players but you won’t have access to all the features and amount of people you find in the bigger MMO world. However, you are still playing on our servers, and you are also playing in an instanced part of the bigger gameworld. When you first start out, you will be completely alone and the characters around you will only be computer-controlled. They will talk with you, interact with you and fight you but you won't find any other players around. You will, however, be able to send messages and communicate with friends and other players on the server.

6.8 What will the single-player experience actually contain?
There will be a complete story that we're able to tell in a cinematic and interactive manner. Because you're closed off in your own instance of the gameworld, we have the power to create world-changing events and really let parts of it play out like in a single-player game. When you first start you will enter the game as a galley slave. Here you will create your character, and shortly after this process is completed a sudden change of events will lead to your character being washed ashore on the Barachan Isles off the coast of Zingara. You will have to fight your way through the jungle to reach the multi-cultural melting pot that is the city of Tortage, where you will discover great adventure and many challenges. From there on we are keeping things under wraps to avoid story spoilers.

6.9 How will my character evolve in the single-player experience?
You start off as a commoner with nothing else but a few old rags to cover your body and a broken oar to fight with. Over the course of the single-player experience, you will become better equipped, discover great treasures, complete challenging quests, and choose a class. You will have a massive amount of experience and knowledge as you step into the bigger massive online world. Still, you will just have scratched the surface of Age of Conan.

6.10 Will I have to be online to play the single-player portion of the
Yes, you will still be playing towards our servers, in a personalized instance of the gameworld. So you must log on to the internet in order to play. You will also have to purchase a retail box to play the single-player experience. The retail box includes 30 days of gametime.

 

MAGIC

7.1 Will there be any magic in Age of Conan?
Yes, absolutely, magic is a vital part in the Hyborian world. There is a fully functional magic system that closely relates to the Conan lore and the original books of Robert E. Howard. Just as we're making huge advancements in the field of combat in massive online games, we're also handling magic and spellcasting quite differently than other games in the genre. Spellcasting will not only require certain skills and feats of your character, but there is also a very interactive system to it that will take human skill to master.


7.2 How do you cast spells in the game?
In Age of Conan we're introducing something called spellweaving. Spellweaving is the art of stringing together a series of spell to create one massive spell that will produce devastating and otherwise extreme results. Spellweaving is an art that will take skill to master, and it is very much a tactical and strategic part of the game that require planning and thinking to carry out.

7.3 What is spellweaving?
Spellweaving is the art of combining multiple spells into one big spell. The player will start the spellweave by activating their spellweave ability. This places them in a trance-like state where they cannot move and the only actions they are allowed to perform are adding more components to the weave. Once in the spellweave the player can add as many spells into the weave as they can manage or want to. The maximum number of spells that can be called into a weave is dependant on the players level. Deactivating the ability will then cast the spell and produce the results.

7.4 Are there any dangers associated with spellweaving?
Very much, yes. Spellweaving is almost a balancing act. How much power can you summon forth without incurring some ancient curse or other mysterious ailment? The risk of this depends on how powerful a weave you are performing based upon the power of the spells you are trying to combine and their level. Stray too far beyond what you are capable of and you will run the risk of incurring one of these side-effects! Using more mana than what you have can also be devastating.

7.5 But can you spellweave as much as you want?
Yes, but there are penalties if you are spellweaving too much and too often. The other element to spellweaving is a characters magical burden. Every time a weave is performed they incur a magical burden, a debt as it were that weighs upon them. If too many weaves are attempted consecutively, or you attempt a weave that pushes your limits to the burden, you will increase the chance of incurring ill-effects on the next weave. This burden naturally decays when a caster is not in a spellweave.

7.6 What exactly is mana?
Mana is the currency, so to speak, that is used to pay for casting spells. Your mana pool works much the same way as your health pool and when you cast spells this pool is emptied depending on how much mana each spell needs. Your mana pool grows over time as your character develops.

7.7 Will magic look and feel as in other online games?
It is true that we try to make the visual look and feel of magic in Conan different from what you have seen in other games. The traditional fireball-tossing magic users in pointy hats, with puffs and multicolored robes, are not part of the Hyborian universe. In Conan's age, magic is dangerous, hidden, and dark. Men who meddle with dark magic may fall to its temptation and powers, so magic uses you as much as you use it! Naturally, the ultimate power comes when you are able to walk the fine line--the one between destruction and creation.

7.8 Will spellcasters be able to summon demons and other creatures?
Yes, some of them certainly will. There will even be classes dedicated to this form of magic, and spellcasters can create special formations called summoning circles. By doing this, they can summon special types of demons and creatures that could never be summoned by one spellcaster alone. Again, this is a dangerous art and as with all spellcasting in Hyboria, and it could lead to disastrous results if not done right. It all relates to your skills and powers.

7.9 Will all magic revolve around death and destruction?
Not at all, you will find a wide array of spells you can perform. There are spellcasting that involves healing people, giving them benefits.