Age of Conan - Out of the Box @ Gamespy

Mixed bag Out of the Box article at Gamespy though the problems they report are technical and gee gosh exploiters. "It may need some polish and tune-up time, but Funcom's just-launched MMO based on Conan's world is still bloody, barbaric fun."

Unfortunately, while being raw and crude is an attraction when it comes to the setting, it's not quite as much fun when it comes to the game's technological infrastructure. The first few "Early Access" days found message boards filled with people having difficulty logging in to the game, getting their account credentials registered and recognized and claiming the proper bonuses. In the first day of general admission, we also had some difficulty getting our access codes recognized, though this may be a function of overloaded registration servers and have nothing to do with the game itself. A few retries on our part eventually got us straightened out and once we logged in we've found the game running smoothly and without a connection hiccup ever since. We've also experienced an occasional delay in loading textures, though they're not bad enough or severe enough to be game-breakers.

The biggest technical headache so far has been the loss of the Traders and the shenanigans of exploiters. Traders are in-game NPCs that serve as a player bank, an auction system and a mail system. As earlier games have found out, launching without a viable auction system is a major handicap; while Funcom has stated that the issue is minor and it's working on the problem, this is an issue that needs to be resolved quickly.

An equally bad issue has been a few unscrupulous guilds who have apparently discovered some type of exploit that lets them gain money and experience far more quickly than intended -- so much so that players have reported seeing level 50 and 60 characters (out of 80) running around after only three days of play. Given the inevitable influx of gold farmers into the game, this is an invitation to economic disaster.

Certain aspects of the game also suffer from a distinct lack of polish. The UI, for example, is a clunky collection of buttons and controls that hide rather than highlight important information. A tiny triangle on the radar, for instance, allows players to switch instances in common areas. This is important because in order to keep the game smooth and populations in common areas fairly low, the game is heavily instanced. That means that getting groups together takes an extra five minutes just to get everyone in the same instance.

The game's chat system is also atrocious. It uses poor color choices and tiny fonts for text that can't be changed from within the game. It's also annoyingly difficult to properly tab conversation channels or subscribe to the right ones. Guild controls are weirdly split between the "Friends" and "Guild Management" buttons.