Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Previews

Both Eurogamer and MPOGD have cranked out new GDC previews of Funcom's ambitious massively multiplayer RPG, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. A snip from Eurogamer's article:
However, as impressive as the distorted faces of the barbarians and the mounted combat demo was, there's something else going on in Godager's presentation that really caught my interest: the idea that Funcom is really trying to include everything that a classic fantasy MMO has done in the past ten years, and improve on it. As Godager talked about the diversity of gameplay he mentioned the mini-games of drunken brawling, the classic dungeon-crawling, and the sprawling storyline that sees gamers tied to the fate of King Conan himself. Then it was time to talk about the epic PvP combat in which players will build cities and fortresses and fight for control of a few resource-rich realms in the middle of Hyboria. This is where Godager's plan for the endgame lies, and the huge map, with all its resources and defensible positions tells of the kind of epic warmongering the game is intending to play host to.

And a snip from MPOGD's article:
The most noteworthy new addition to the Age of Conan that Funcom revealed would arguably be the mounted beasts that can be used for attack, expressly the War Mammoth, War Rhino and War Horse, none of which are currently slated to be earned in-game at this point but can be acquired through one form of purchase or another. Godager compared the maneuverability and speed of the beasts to vehicles in Grand Theft Auto, the mammoth being measured against the slow-moving but tank-like bus and the horse on the other end of the spectrum being likened to a fast, agile exotic sports car. The rhino, clearly taken from the movie 300, is the balance of both ends of the mounted combat spectrum. Most attacks from these mounts aren't too dissimilar from ground combat, just from an elevated and defensible position using front, right, left, center and back attacks of the (real combat) system and the few keys needed to carry it out. (High level opponents,) Godager warned, (can knock you off your mount or slow you down, although it's a very effective position to attack from.)