Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Beta Journal #2

[GameBanshee News]

Another set of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures beta logs are available on WarCry.

I decided that it was actually time to get some adventuring done, so I took off my tourist hat and went about talking to some of the NPCs in Old Tarantia. Getting a feel about the place wasn't a problem as certain NPCs will give you quests to go on a bit of a scavenger hunt around the city. One such scavenger hunt-type quest was for the stable owner in Old Tarantia, whom informed me that one of his most prized phillies had run off and it was my job to scout-about and track down where the spooked equine had gotten to. Let's just say it all goes to the dogs. The city has more or less everything you need, and that's not just for the lowbie character; players will continue coming back to the hubs (Old Tarantia, Conarch Village, and Khemi) if not for handing in quests, but to check in at auction houses, to stock up on new spell scrolls, or perhaps even to re-equip one's self with some shiny, new weapons and armour, and thanks to the fast-travel system in 'Age of Conan', it's not a trip that you will mind having to make, and I guess that's one of the advantages of not playing in a "seamless" world: travelling from point 'A' to point 'B' from anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour is not my idea of fun, and I'm quite sure this is what Funcom is going for as well. If you're paying for a month's subscription, you don't want to be spending half your time on foot or horseback just getting from place to place. But having said that, the zones are magnificently large, and you can think what you like about zoning technology, but Funcom have gone to great lengths to give each and every zone in 'Age of Conan' that epic feel, not a world made out of plastic or coloured with pastels.

[Xandax]

Never found it exiting enough, so never really made it out of the starting city myself in my beta play.