Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is a fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game

MMORPG

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

(MMORPG) developed by a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

computer video game developer company, Funcom

Funcom

Funcom Productions A/S is a Norwegian video game developer specializing in online games. It is best known for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game titles Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and its The Longest Journey series of adventure games...

, and is published by Eidos Interactive

Eidos Interactive

Eidos Interactive Ltd. is a British video game publisher and is a label of Square Enix Europe. As an independent company Eidos plc was headquartered in the Wimbledon Bridge House in Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton....

for the PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

platform. The game's pre-release occurred on May 17, 2008, available to those who had pre-ordered the game and registered for early access; the full release and launch of the game was May 20, 2008 in Northern America, and May 23, 2008 for Europe. Although originally announced as being available for the Xbox 360

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

, the console version has now been cancelled. Originally, in order to continuously play Hyborian Adventures, users were required to pay a monthly subscription fee. In May 2011 Funcom announced that a free-to-play

Free-to-play

Free-to-play refers to any video game that has the option of allowing its players to play without paying. The model was first popularly used in early massively multiplayer online games targeted towards casual gamers, before finding wider adoption among games released by major video game...

(F2P) option would become available later in the year, although customers would still have the option to subscribe. The free version of the game became available in June 2011, offering limited access to game content, while subscribers received 'premium' access to all available game content. A microtransaction

Micropayment

A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. PayPal defines a micropayment as a transaction of less than 12 USD while Visa prefers transactions under 20 Australian dollars, and though micropayments were originally envisioned to...

system was introduced in summer 2011 to enable players to purchase in-game items

Virtual good

Virtual goods are non-physical objects purchased for use in online communities or online games. They have no intrinsic value and are intangible by definition....

via Funcom Points.

Hyborian Adventures is the first installment in the planned Age of Conan series. Age of Conan itself takes place within the continent of the Hyborian kingdoms

The Hyborian Age

The Hyborian Age is an essay by Robert E. Howard pertaining to the Hyborian Age, the fictional setting of his stories about Conan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s but not published during Howard's lifetime...

, a year after the events depicted in Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard

Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....

's Conan

Conan the Cimmerian

Conan the Cimmerian may refer to:* Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard's fictional character* Conan , Dark Horse Comics' comic series about that character...

novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

, The Hour of the Dragon

The Hour of the Dragon

The Hour of the Dragon, also known as Conan the Conqueror, is a fantasy novel written by Robert E. Howard featuring his seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian. It was first published in serial form in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1935 through 1936; and in book form in 1950 by Gnome...

. Hyborian Adventures release celebrated the 76th anniversary of the Conan

Conan the Cimmerian

Conan the Cimmerian may refer to:* Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard's fictional character* Conan , Dark Horse Comics' comic series about that character...

franchise

Media franchise

A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...

Characters

Characters in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures are registered to a unique user account on a specific online server, with characters created on one server unable to be played on another. Players are able to create characters which function as their virtual avatars

Avatar (virtual reality)

In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...

in the online world of Hyboria. During character creation, the player may choose from four playable races. The character is one of four archetypes (in bold) and one of three class selections for each archetype. The "Rise of the Godslayer" expansion brought on a new race, the Khitan.

Aquilonian Aquilonia (Conan) Aquilonia is a fictional country created by Robert E. Howard as part of his Hyborian world, created for his character Conan the Barbarian. Conan eventually becomes king of this country....	Cimmerian Cimmeria (Conan) Cimmeria is a fictional land of barbarians in antediluvian earth and the homeland of Conan the Barbarian in the works of Robert E. Howard.-Fictional history:...	Stygian	Khitan
Rogue Assassin Ranger Barbarian	Rogue Ranger Barbarian	Rogue Assassin Ranger	Rogue Assassin Ranger
Priest Priest of Mitra	Priest Bear Shaman	Priest Tempest of Set	Priest Bear Shaman
		Mage Necromancer Herald of Xotli Demonologist	Mage Necromancer Herald of Xotli Demonologist
Soldier Guardian Dark Templar Conqueror	Soldier Guardian Dark Templar Conqueror		Soldier Guardian Dark Templar

Combat

Combat comprises striking a target from different angles, such as hacking down against the head, slashing diagonally down from the left or right, and slashing diagonally up from the left or right. These directions are designed to be strung together in combination naturally during combat. Difficult-to-perform combinations cause additional damage and faster strikes.

Funcom has said that their "Real Combat" system, a combat system designed to offer more real-time options than traditional Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

-inspired "turn-based" combat systems that are more commonly used, will be a prime attraction of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. This "Real Combat" system is a first-person melee approach in which every enemy has three different areas that players can target. Combinations can be performed by stringing together consecutive attacks in particular directions. Feedback from players has pointed out that this system requires a certain degree of dexterity. Character statistics and item bonuses also play a role in this system, however item bonuses have less effect on a character's power than in comparable games, so that whilst equipment does play a certain role other factors also have an impact, such as the player's skill or their analysis of the scenario. The idea of "Real Combat" is to eliminate the dullness of typical MMO

Massively multiplayer online game

A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...

fighting, which often consists of an auto-attack feature.

The "Real Combat" system is used in one-on-one weapon battles, as well as during spell-casting, ranged combat and mounted combat. In some situations however, players will choose to band together and unite their skills to face other bands of players or non-player armies. Players can then work together and build on each others' strengths, for example a character standing in line with a 'Conqueror' when he is running will have a greater resistance to knockback effects.

Players are able to take part in large scale siege operations. Adventurers can cooperate with one another to build cities with walls, towers and catapults that can protect player-owned taverns and merchant facilities.

The dance moves were made using motion capture

Motion capture

Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...

on the dancer Hallgrim Hansegård

Hallgrim Hansegård

Hallgrim Hansegård is a Norwegian choreographer and dancer whose background is rooted in his traditional halling dance training and contemporary dance.-Career:...

, who is a backing dancer for the winning song of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Eurovision Song Contest 2009

The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was the 54th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest and was hosted by Russia after their win in 2008. It took place between 12 and 16 May 2009 at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow, Russia....

: "Fairytale

Fairytale (Alexander Rybak song)

"Fairytale" is a song written and composed by Norwegian violinist/singer Alexander Rybak, and the first single from Rybak's debut album Fairytales...

" by Alexander Rybak

Alexander Rybak

Alexander Igoryevich Rybak or in Belarusian Alyaksandr Igaravich Rybak , born 13 May 1986 in Byelorussian SSR is a Norwegian singer-composer, violinist, pianist, writer, and actor...

.

In July 2011, a Hardcore PvP server was launched for the EU and US servers. This hardcore PvP server removes the guards from the various cities and playfields and re-opened PvP on the instances around the city of Tortage. This hardcore server brings back the basics of MMO PvP combat in that players will have a chance at dropping loot from their inventory when they are killed in player vs player combat. Also, players are only able to have one character on these servers. This was a fresh-start server which doesn't allow any character transfer to it, does not allow the use of offline levels, or free level 50 characters.

Setting

Age of Conan is set in a low fantasy

Low fantasy

Low fantasy is a term used to describe a variety of works within the sub-genres of fantasy fiction. Low fantasy places relatively less emphasis on typical elements associated with fantasy, setting a narrative in real-world environments with only vague elements of the fantastical, sometimes just...

pseudo-historical ancient world called the Hyborian Age

Hyborian Age

The Hyborian Age is a fictional period within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, in which the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian are set....

, created by Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard

. The warlord Conan has seized the throne of Aquilonia

Aquilonia (Conan)

Aquilonia is a fictional country created by Robert E. Howard as part of his Hyborian world, created for his character Conan the Barbarian. Conan eventually becomes king of this country....

, but ancient evils seek to overthrow him.

The lead artist Terje Lundberg said that the look and feel of Hyboria was based on the interpretation of the stories written by Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard

. "When you read Howard's work you're immediately drawn into a gritty world of dark and ancient forces, and mighty and decadent civilizations. You feel the great weight of the ages and sense the very history in the crumbling mortar and the ruins. Therefore we've been mindful from the outset to create a world which is true to Howard's writing. There is majesty in Hyboria but it's of a monolithic, brutal and primitive kind – it certainly isn't "high fairie" where everything appears as though it was built only yesterday and is devoid of context."

Lundberg said the game at launch will contain three countries, Cimmeria, a northern country with snow and highlands, Aquilonia, which contains "green hills, lush riverbeds, and the marvelous city of Tarantia", and Stygia, which consists mostly of deserts and "some beautiful cities" — as well as the island of Tortage which "has a diverse geography ranging from jungle to harbors."

Music and sound

Five principal individuals worked on the music and audio for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The Audio Director is Morten Sørlie, who created the soundtrack for Anarchy Online – Shadowlands

Anarchy Online

Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game published and developed by Funcom. Released in the summer of 2001, the game was first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, free trials, and in-game advertising. The most ground breaking feature in...

. Simon Poole (Lead Sound designer on "Dreamfall – The Longest Journey") took over as Audio Director in May 2007, and saw the project through to completion. The sound designers are Tord D. Nikolaisen and Fredrik Martol. Composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

Knut Avenstroup Haugen wrote the musical score for the game. To create a musical score for the Hyborian universe, Haugen turned to many different sources: For the music of the different ethnic groups, Haugen studied traditional music from relevant parts of the world. For the overall sound of the Hyborian Age

Hyborian Age

The Hyborian Age is a fictional period within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, in which the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian are set....

, Haugen studied ancient and medieval music as well as the romantic orchestra repertoire and film scores, while avoiding conventions that connect too closely to specific historical periods.
The female vocalist heard in the score is Norwegian singer Helene Bøksle

Helene Bøksle

Helene Bøksle is a singer and actress. Helene has performed with singers such as Bjørn Eidsvåg, David Urwitz and Eurovision 1995 winners Secret Garden. She entered the Melodi Grand Prix 2011 with the song "Vardlokk"...

. Norwegian punk rock artists Turbonegro

Turbonegro

Turbonegro is a Norwegian punk rock band that was initially active from 1989 to 1998, and later reformed in 2002. Their style combines glam rock, punk rock and hard rock into a style the band describes as "deathpunk"....

contributed three bonus songs to the soundtrack CD, one of which was written specifically for the album.

Knut Avenstroup Haugen won the IFMCA award for Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media for his score.

Over 40 actors voiced the large cast of characters. The recording was done at Side UK in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Side LA in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, and at Funcom in Norway

Norway

Technology

The game makes use of following technologies:

Cheetah. Shader-oriented proprietary render engine
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...

re-written from scratch by Funcom featuring a Phong
Phong shading
Phong shading refers to an interpolation technique for surface shading in 3D computer graphics. It is also called Phong interpolation or normal-vector interpolation shading. Specifically, it interpolates surface normals across rasterized polygons and computes pixel colors based on the interpolated...

per pixel lighting system. This engine allows for improved graphics and ambience. This is coupled with a trapezoidal shadow system, an in-house system developed by Funcom that allows all objects to cast shadows onto everything.

Perlin noise-based cloud generating system. Five-layered procedural
Procedural generation
Procedural generation is a widely used term in the production of media; it refers to content generated algorithmically rather than manually. Often, this means creating content on the fly rather than prior to distribution...

system that enables multiple layers of dynamic clouds; thus, visually realistic cloud behavior.

SpeedTree
SpeedTree
SpeedTree is a group of vegetation programming and modeling software products developed and sold by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. that generates virtual foliage for animations and in real time for video games and simulations...

. Programming package that aims to produce high-quality virtual foliage in real time.

DreamWorld. The graphics engine has been developed by Funcom circa 2000. When Funcom began developing Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, the company reviewed its existing technology base and decided to focus on the further evolution of their proprietary DreamWorld engine as opposed to licensing a third-party engine as many online RPG companies do. As such, Funcom began to retool their engine with the overall design. Pipeline and implementation process was taken into account. In light of these changes, the DreamWorld engine has been rebuilt for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures with new features, special effects, and optimizations.

DirectX 10. A major update of DirectX API. Although advertised on the gamebox, the game did not include support for DirectX 10 at the time of launch. A preview of the DirectX 10 features was given at the Games Convention in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

in August 2008. As of late March 2009, a DX10 client was released for all live servers.

Umbra. Umbra is GPU-accelerated occlusion culling software developed by Umbra Software Ltd
Umbra software
Umbra Software Ltd. is a graphics software technology company founded 2007 in Helsinki, Finland. Umbra Software specializes in occlusion culling, visibility and rendering optimization technology and provides middleware for videogames running on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PC, iOS and...

. Umbra's aim is to speed up the rendering of large worlds with a lot of overdraw.

Development

Funcom delayed Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures on January 21, 2008 and again on March 24, 2008. The delays were widely reported by online game magazines such as IGN. Once released, the game sold over 500,000 copies worldwide by June 1, 2008. Six days later one million copies had been shipped in total.

Between March 2005 and January 2006, Funcom periodically revealed concept art

Concept art

Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design...

and screenshot

Screenshot

A screenshot , screen capture , screen dump, screengrab , or print screen is an image taken by a computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device...

s from Age of Conan. The Art Director for the Conan project is Didrik Tollefsen, known for such classics as The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Norwegian studio Funcom for the PC. First published by IQ Media Nordic in Norway in 1999, it was later localized for and released in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Denmark,...

and Anarchy Online – Shadowlands

Anarchy Online

, which won the Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction award in 2003.

On January 24, 2006, Funcom unveiled the community portal for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. By this time, much of the pre-launch community had gathered around the forums and IRC chat of the official Age of Conan website. There were informal events such as IRC chats with the developers and, in summer 2006, community contests.

In April 2006, Funcom created a forum for guild recruitment entitled the Guild Hall for its pre-launch community, allowing forum members began organizing their player guilds.

In January 2007, several important updates were announced regarding the expected launch window for the game. Also on January 12, 2007, Funcom announced the original twenty-three classes had been merged down to fourteen classes to avoid the lack of diversity between them.

On February 7, 2008, Funcom and Eidos announced that over 500,000 people had signed up for the Beta Testing of Age of Conan.

On May 19, 2008, GameZone.com presented a series of original fictional stories by Michael Lafferty, stemming from the massively multiplayer online world of Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures. The stories were written with the permission and cooperation of Funcom. The tales explore the world, the characters and the lore involved in Hyboria.

In September 2008, Gaute Godager

Gaute Godager

Gaute Godager is a Norwegian video game director who created Funcom with Erik Gloersen, Ian Neil, Andre Backen, and Olav Mørkrid in 1993, and worked for the company for 16 years. He has directed the massively multiplayer online role-playing game titles Anarchy Online and Age of Conan: Hyborian...

, the Producer and Game Director resigned from his role in Age of Conan and from Funcom, a company he had been involved in for over 16 years. In his press release, he revealed that he was not happy with elements in the game's development since release. He was succeeded by Craig Morrison

Craig Morrison

Craig Morrison is the British video game designer and director who works on massively multiplayer online role-playing game titles for Norwegian company Funcom. He is currently game director and producer for Age of Conan after Gaute Godager left the company...

, previously live Game Director of Anarchy Online, and community manager for various Funcom community forums.

On August 18, 2009, Funcom launched a website showcasing the upcoming expansion, Rise of the Godslayer. Set in the mythical land of Khitai, it features a new Eastern theme.

The expansion was released on May 11, 2010 and provided new areas for low level characters in the form of a home zone for the new playable race, the Khitans; and also provided four additional regions for characters of advanced level. The new content also includes new companions that can be trained for use as combat pets, or as mounts. A faction system was introduced in order to add variety and re-playability to the new zones. The expansion was largely intended to add diversity to players' experiences at the end of the game. Through new quests, group instances, and raids, players are able to gather tokens to buy new armour sets. An additional incentive is the Alternative Advancement system; a new tree of character feats or perks that are acquired by means of a dedicated point system.

New original music was added by composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen to convey the Asiatic atmosphere of the expansion region.

Funcom added yet more content for the expansion, as well as upgrades to the DX10 version of the game.

Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

. The game was "very inviting and plays well" according to VariableGHz. Player reactions were overwhelmingly negative in the months following the release, as the game was plagued by a vast number of bugs, missing zones, broken encounters and total lack of end-game content. Since release, Funcom has made improvements to performance and changes and additions to the game which were not ready in time for launch, as well as in response to feedback from players. Additions have included new adventuring zones, and revamps of existing dungeons.

Seth Schiesel, writing for the New York Times, stated that the development of the game would have benefited from a few extra months of production.

Giuseppe Nelva of DualShockers.com wrote an updated review of the game in September 2011, praising the improved state of the game and awarding Age of Conan a 9/10, while writing: "With the arrival of the new game director Craig Morrison, and years of hard work behind the scenes, not only Funcom managed to straighten the many things that didn’t work in the game and polish it considerably, but they completely turned the tables, creating one of the most enjoyable, innovative and beautiful looking and sounding MMORPGs in the market. It’s not yet perfect, and some old flaws still occasionally resurface, but whether you are an old player that quit long ago, but is still hearing the wild call of Hyboria, or you’re looking for a new MMORPG to enjoy, Age of Conan is an extremely solid offering, that together with one of the best low-fantasy settings ever written, graphics of jaw-dropping quality and the innovative battle system, creates a game that every fan of the MMORPG genre should try."

External links

Trip Report: Age of Conan (Part 1, VariableGHz)
Officially Supported Age of Conan MMORPG News website on Wikia
Wikia
Wikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Characters

Combat

Setting

Music and sound

Technology

Development

Reception

See also

External links