General Discussion

Funcom has braved the horrors of the FAQ to steal the treasures locked within.  And by treasures I mean they've decided to answer some of your questions about Age of Conan.

It’s said that FAQs heave themselves from the dark places of the Earth and return to terrorize the surface world every few years.

The time is upon us once again.

The stars are right and the FAQ is nigh, covering such popular questions as:

• What kind of PC do I need to run Age of Conan?
• Will player-made items be better than dropped items?
• How many people can play on each server?

While we’re under no illusions that this will settle all the debates out there, it will give you a place to start and a handy reference. You’ll find the new FAQ here.

We hope you enjoy.

Read more here.

From the FAQ...

A 20 level single player game...which I have heard many a complaint about...but, lets look at it in a different perspective shall we?

1. The player learns combat, learns various aspects of the game (UI, options, etc.)...and does not have to innundate a "barrens" type chat to ask questions (even though we all know it will happen...but, if the game does this part right...there will be no need.

2. Players hardly ever group for the first 10-20 levels...which can vary from game to game...but is totally true..and one of the downfalls of many games...if the single player is engaging enough, then this first "tutorial" part becomes a special place for the gamer..

3. The player will still enter a city - ALA Guild Wars to talk to others within an hour...so, they are not left "alone" too long...

4. AND...this is the biggest. What always seems to be the #1 issue for players when they start a new MMO? The lag and server crashes of players logging in all at one time and too fast and filling up servers...and the company not knowing how many servers will work well for how many people..I don't care HOW many stress tests they do..I have yet to see any MMO launch without a server crash within the first week.. This is how this single player succeeds. Track users who start playing single player...as it will be instanced...and then have an idea of how many customers they will have and where to move them too...

I am impressed...and will watch this patiently, and may just jump on that bandwagon when it hits...as they have really thought through a lot of issues....and can make this work.

Good luck Funcom!

And PC Requirements:

What sort of PC is required to play Age of Conan?

Required
OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800

Recommended
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
Vdeo Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
RAM: 2GB or more

Enhanced for: DirectX 10, 64-bit processors, multi-core

Highly Scalable in-between low end and high end for individual tastes.

Huzzah!

Great to finally see some exact notes on what kind of pc you will need to get. Minimum requirements don't seem to be all that high really, looks like my 3 year old pc will just about make it with a new graphics card, tough i  really doubt it besides what it says....time to invest methinks.

Also, i agree with above statement that the lowlvl single-playing will most probably be a great strength with AoC. Now everyone on lvl 1 won't have to fight over the same rats

I'm cool with the player cities not being attackable and such, though I prefer they could be. However I am a little disappointed with the instanced cities. I absolutely plan on playing on the PvP Server and I was kind of looking forward to being chased by a gang of PKs to my guild's city where I could stand safely behind my gate or have fellow citizens join me in chasing them off. Still hope for Battlekeeps but......

I am actually surprised at the minimum and recommended specs for the game, I expected much much higher. I've just rebuilt my system, just for this game, in anticipation that they were going to be outrageous, lol. I definitely surpass the recommended now, so I guess I can look forward to a somewhat smooth gaming experience.

I was really looking forward to this game.

Looks like my system is to slow.

Id have to buy a CPU and a graph card.

About 200$ worths.

Were so pore, If I dont wake up with a hard on for X-mase.

I have nothing to play with.

Life suckX!

I've played dozens of games where the listed requirements were either completly false or very inaccurate. Also a common assumption is that if you have higher than what is listed, that you will be able to play above minimum settings.

Normally the best way to know for sure what the real requirements are, is to either try it yourself or have someone you know with a similar rig to yours try it. But as long as the game remains under NDA the chances of you really knowing this before you shell out the cash are pretty slim, unless you find yourself some leaked info.

I would treat it the same way you treat a feature set of a game in development - it isn't really in until you see it release. A lot of people are getting their hopes up about performance... I wouldn't be so hasty.

I am hoping that level 1 toons cant /tell other people.

This kind of sucks.  My CPU is a 2.8 Ghz.  I think everything else is in specs though.  I guess its time for an upgrade.

And what they mean by required is that you'll be able to play the game assuming there isn't another player within about 200m of you.

I've played games before when the computer I was on fell between the required and recommended specs, and it was never fun... the computer can rarely keep up with anything going on.

This is a PvP heavy game... if you can't make the recommended specs, it might not be a very good play experience.