Heads Will Roll

I've already talked about Age of Conan's unique combat system and some of my earlier experience with my first AoC toon, a Stygian Tempest of Set. But it took me till level 17 with my Tempest before I realized his combo moves weren't coming any time soon, if at all. Indeed, I found myself spamming just one attack, my aoe lightning strike, throwing in some needless, but satisfying, head bashing for good measure. I had read somewhere that spellcasters get combo moves too, but that was either erroneous or comes at later levels.

Having seen footage of decapitations, hewn limbs, and bloody guttings, I knew I was missing out on some of the best fun of the game.

So I rerolled a melee class, a conqueror, and started over. Almost immediately, I sliced my two-handed sword into some sinewy neck and lopped a head off. Don't underestimate how much fun it is to engage in whole-sale decapitation. I nearly got my toon killed trying to time out a combo to procc the melon-lopper. If you're new to AoC, I highly recommend you start the game off with a melee class, if only to get the gore and dismemberment out of your system. I don't doubt that this kind of detailed combat will fuel an enthusiastic PvP community.

Reviews are starting to trickle for the game and they're B'ish for the most part. Unlike WoW which hit the scene with nearly unanimous acclaim, reviewers seem a bit more reserved regarding AoC. Most like the unique combat system, but they point out abilities that don't work and class mis-balances. Almost all observe that the game is new and are willing to the give Funcom the benefit of the doubt on fixing current problems.

Personally, the game hasn't tore me away from Lord of the Rings Online. I haven't made it past the starting island mostly because I've been grinding crafting in LotRO. Which I find remarkable because that's been a massive resource grindfest and yet I've been eager to tear into it and have progressed nicely. I think AoC has some great potential, but it reminds me of that problem that MMOs birth: how do you play two MMOs simultaneously. I maintain that you can't, at least not well. So in all likelihood I'll not be renewing my AoC subscription another month. I see myself revisiting it in the weeks or months to come, but for now, I'm heeding the LotRO siren call.