What’s that mean?

Well, basically, the first 20 levels of Age of Conan are solo play. You start off as a mind-wiped galley slave, who ends up helping kill the slavemaster and sink the boat. You realize your fate is tied to Conan the King, and you work your way through the starting island, learning new skills, leveling up, and gaining new gear as you go.

It’s not just character skills – you learn HOW to play the game, too. It’s not just a “hit auto-attack and go get yourself a cookie” kind of game. Instead, you have to learn how to dance – the Dance of Steel.

Imagine a pizza with six slices. If you put a picture of your face on the pizza, each slice would show a different direction you can attack it from. Combining those attack movements leads to combo moves, and eventually, even to fatality moves. Combat is slower in this game than in many others, but it looks and feels more realistic.

Speaking of faces, the avatar customization in Conan is very complex. Age of Conan is a grim, dark world, and the avatars show that – but you can make yours even more dark or bad looking if you desire in a large number of different ways.

While your questing on the island it’ll be much like a solo RPG – you’ll have cut scenes, dialogue choices, and the such. After you get off the island, though, you’ll be in an MMORPG as you go through the remaining 60 levels, and working together with other people. And that’s the name of the game, as you’ll need the help.

By yourself you have melee combat, mounted combat using melee weapons and lances where your mount’s speed will help determine how much damage you do (and your mount can be killed), and bow combat. Bows can be used in sniper mode – you actually go into first person and have a targeting reticule – or they can be used in “carpet bombing” mode or “debuff” mode.

In a group, though, you’ll have more options. A group can have a formation, which will allow you to fight more effectively. You’d use a formation in a dungeon crawl, for example, in order to help protect your weaker members (such as casters). As the battles get larger, you’ll be able to fight in larger and larger formations – or man siege weapons against cities or formations of men.

Guilds are encouraged to build cities. Cities can grow quite big, and include things such as barracks (to provide NPC guards) and crafting stations (buildings). But as you build one, another is being built – either by other players (in a PvP environment) or by monsters (such as bandits) nearby. Over the course of weeks, their city will grow, and once at the right size they’ll attack you – unless you’ve razed them first.

The graphics are intended to really make you feel like you’re in Hyboria. The initial island is a lush jungle. The gear is very detailed. And the main city, shown in the demo, is huge and detailed.

NPCs have a need-based AI – they need to sleep, eat, etc. If Conan comes out to address his subjects, they will cheer and bow for him. In some parts of the cities, NPCs battle it out for control of territory.

Age of Conan looks to be an interesting fusion of genres and game styles. It’s treading on familiar ground – the fantasy MMO – but with some interesting twists.