Rewarding combat
Before we get into that though, let's focus on Hyborian Adventures because if you're new to the world of Conan that's where you'll be starting out. Having never read the books, my earliest memory of the character comes from the movie Conan The Barbarian, starring a still young Arnold Schwarzenegger. From what I remember there was a lot of bare chested loincloth action, a very large sword and not a great deal else, so when I heard an MMO was in the pipeline I wasn't totally convinced it was the right way to go. After a few hours of play though it became clear to me why Hyborian Adventures received the praise it did, and that it was a game with a great deal of potential.You view the action from the traditional third person perspective, quests lead to experience points, experience points lead to levelling up etc etc. So at first glance it really doesn't seem that different to your average WoW clone, bar the abundance of breasts on screen at any given time that is. The two main things that set it apart are the combat and the storyline.
Combat isn't the usual point and click affair with a few key strokes thrown in, you have to aim your bow and sword attacks at your enemies weak points so wildly mashing the keypad won't get you far. Enemies shield themselves well during combat, so even if you're a higher level than the beast you're attempting to slay you still have to pay attention and seek out hits on it's unshielded area's to achieve greater damage. As you level up and start using combo's and fatalities that require you to aim your strike, then hit four or five key strokes in succession things get even better. This makes combat in Conan more rewarding than most other MMO's and keeps even the longest of grinding sessions interesting.
Continued overleaf...