Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Preview

The Armchair Empire has put together a preview of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, based upon what we know so far about Funcom's action RPG. A paragraph to follow:
Setting itself apart from other online RPGs, Age of Conan will actually start off as a single player game, with players making their way to level 20 on their own, and forging their own path in Hyboria before hopping online to play. At first, players will start off as a slave in one of the three starting regions of the game (and no, you can't play as Conan, he's an NPC in the game), and have to fight their way to freedom, fame, and so forth. During these early portions of the game, players will start as a commoner, and at level five will have a small, basic collection of classes to choose from, ranging from warrior, to mage, to priest, to rogue. Once players hit level 20, though, the rest of Hyboria will open up, and players can take part in the MMORPG portion of Age of Conan. This could be an interesting way of approaching the genre, as it prevents things like power leveling, and forces players to really learn their character, and get a sense for the game's world. Once players hit level 40, they will be able to specialize their character even further.