Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures (Xbox 360)

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200-player PVP sounds great

Earlier in the week VideoGamer.com took you through the first eight or so levels of upcoming gruesome MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, delivering a cautiously optimistic verdict that while the game is perfectly ambitious, it's currently full of bugs and doesn't do much in its early stages to distinguish it from other fantasy MMOs.

Now we take you through the game's mid-level content, its player versus player combat and discuss some of the unique game features which will be available further into the game.

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Having spent a good few hours taking a newly created character up to level eight, Norwegian developer Funcom gave us about half an hour of game time in a group of level 25s. I was actually quite looking forward to getting my hands on a more powerful character, and, I figured, more spectacular spells, combo abilities and brutal execution moves.

My level 25 was a Stygian Demonologist, of the mage class. It reminded me of World of Warcraft's Warlock - indeed you can summon a minion that looks like a male version of WoW's succubus. I had a quick look at my abilities - I had your bog standard RPG-style buff spells, like Absorb Shield, Flame Shield, Arcane Insight and Warrior Form. I also had some bog-standard attacking spells, mainly of the fire and electric styles, divided up into instant cast and one or two second charge.

We were thrust into an outdoor instanced dungeon - The Maze, in Aquilonia, on a mission to kill a giant spider. The group I was in numbered roughly seven, of varying classes. From my knowledge of fantasy MMOs I knew as a mage-type that my main role in the group would be to hang back and fire off attacking spell after attacking spell until whatever it is that was suffering the party's wrath dropped down dead.

The dark, mature tone fits well with the Conan universe.

And so it proved. We made our way though the open landscape, a barren, charred area, quickly destroying mini-spiders on our way to the Queen. There was nothing challenging about the ordeal, and I had a feeling throughout that we were way overpowered for this particular challenge.

The boss fight itself was a complete shambles - with no communication between the group some players went for it while others didn't. As a result there was no coordinated effort to take the boss down, with more of a "nuke it till it's dead" philosophy employed. I found myself hanging back at every opportunity, spamming my main fire spell. Inevitably the target would turn its attention towards me because I was doing more damage than anyone else, and then I would prey that someone would spot my distress and come save me. Unfortunately this didn't happen, and I died before the Queen was killed.

In AoC when you die you do not suffer any penalty. You merely re-spawn in a safe area. Unfortunately that safe area was miles away form where the Queen was killed. I couldn't be bothered to travel all the way back there, just as my team mates were running back to cash in the quest, so I just left the mission uncompleted. Sigh.

We didn't have much time as level 25s, so it's difficult to make sweeping judgements about how the game will end up playing around this level. But what I will say is that there wasn't much in terms of unique MMO gameplay on offer. Sitting back and spamming fire spells at giant spiders is something I've spent years doing in tonnes of games.

This correlates with much of what I said in the preview of AoC's early levels. Apart from the gore, there's little to make the game stand out. It promises much - including properly implemented mounted combat, where momentum will be a factor in how much damage you do and horseback sword swiping and spell casting will be a (virtual) reality, as well as guild city construction through the architect profession and 200-player sieges. But unfortunately none of this genuinely unique and interesting content was playable during our time at Funcom.

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