I jumped into Age of Conan just after it launched in 2008. I had little hope for it being my next MMO because at the time I was waiting to get into the Warhammer Online beta. With a few months to go for the full release of WAR and no beta key in sight, I decided to join a few friends in Hyboria to see what it was all about. To my astonishment I quickly fell in love with the game. The amazing graphics, the fantastic and fresh combat system, and the story telling in the starter city of Tortage really surprised me. Not as much as when I passed level 20 though. Then the real surprise set in.

Pretty soon my friends, who were a couple steps ahead of me, decided to quit. I heard mutterings that they were bored, but I had chalked it up to MMO burnout. I decided to stick around for a bit, but it didn’t take long to come to the same realization; Tortage was a lie. Everything we had been praising about the game turned out to be a façade to a pretty standard MMO. Well, maybe a less than standard MMO since there didn’t even seem to be a good amount of quests to keep me busy. I was resorting to solo grinding mobs, and since I had tasted the sweet fruit that was Tortage, I had a bad taste in my mouth for a grind.

I’ve been debating whether to check out the game again for a while and on a whim decided to pick up a time card while I was at our local Best Buy. I was shocked to even see them on the shelf. Double shocked when I found out they were half priced. So I picked up what they had left (2) and loaded the game when I got home. It’s taken me a few days to get used to the game again – trying to remember what all of my Dark Templar’s abilities do, and how to spend my feat points has been interesting. But I will say that so far I’m enjoying myself. I think that may be for a couple reasons:

1. Having to relearn old things and trying to catch up to what’s changed in the game is exciting. The first run through any MMO is usually my favorite experience. I like trying to figure out how everything works, and when I get to a point where I pretty much know what does what, I get bored. Johnny 5 need input!
2. I think since I’ve not played through Tortage again and because it’s been some time since I’ve played, I’m treating Age of Conan more like a regular MMO. It has its own trappings like the combat mechanics (which I still love), but it uses a pretty standard systems beyond that. Basically, I’m going into it with low expectations.

I have a bunch of prepaid time to play the game, but no idea if I’ll actually use it all. Like I said, I’m actually enjoying figuring stuff out, and I can tell there is quite a bit more content available. Now I have to see if the content is any good.

Quick side note: I had a billing issue when I started my account back up (was completely user error) and Funcom’s customer support had my problem rectified within an hour from the time I sent them an email, on the weekend no less. Color me impressed so far.