Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Previews

IGN PC and GamesRadar are next in line with hands-on previews of Funcom's highly anticipated MMORPG, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. An excerpt from IGN's article:
Another topic of discontent for some fans is enduring the game's single player portion. One might think that being stranded in your own instance to fend for yourself might make for a lonely game. Typically MMO players will spend the first 10 to 20 levels questing and playing solo, and it's not like you're going to be raiding at level 5 anyway. In other words, Tortage is a clever way to make people learn how to play the game so that they will be less annoying when they are ready to join the big, bad world beyond.

Enduring? On to GamesRadar's article:
Single-player missions take place at night, when you can work to further the causes of the underground resistance under cover of darkness. Multiplayer missions happen during the day - and as it turns out, even if you're concentrating on your destiny quest for levels 1 20, you'll still spend some time completing daytime missions, because they're required in order to level up. But even in the multiplayer areas, most 1 20 quests were still easily tackled alone.

Through five quest arcs, I began to uncover the secrets of both my past and Tortage. I learned that I'm inked with the Mark of Acheron, which turns out to be a far worse tattoo than even one of those barbed-wire arm bands: it brands me as a member of evil sorcerer Thoth-amon's slave army. Luckily, a mystical medallion can undo its effects. but the medallion is currently in Strom's possession. Eventually, I fought alongside the resistance movement to break Strom's hold on Tortage once and for all, and was rewarded with the medallion - or rather, a piece of it. To find the other ¾ of it, I must travel the world. in levels 20 through 80.