Curse

It is time, once again, to poll the minds and hearts of our readership and answer their most burning questions.

First up, a mysterious crate marked “Courtesy of Our Friends At Mongoose Publishing” washed up on the beach at Kalanthes’ feet. Inside, he found three books:

• Conan: Hyboria’s Fallen: Pirates, Thieves, And Temptresses
• Conan: Tales of the Black Kingdoms
• Conan: Tito’s Trading Post

As we have been unable to determine who owns three very lovely books sure to set the mood for any roleplayers that would like to dig deep into the world of Hyboria, we will give them to a randomly-selected person that emails community@ageofconan.com with “Kalanthes’ Books” in the subject and their name, address, phone number, and email address in the body of the email.

Since we get more emails about this than anything else, the official system requirements for the game are:

Minimum configuration (1024x768, detail reduced)

• OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
• Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz or equivalent
• RAM: 1GB
• Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better
• Video memory: 128MB
• DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
• HARD DRIVE SPACE: 30GB

Recommended configuration (Up to 1280X960, most features on)

• OS: Windows XP SP 2 or Windows Vista
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or equivalent
• RAM: 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2
• Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or equivalent
• Video memory: 512MB
• DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive
• HARD DRIVE SPACE: 30GB

Online Gaming;

• Broadband connection required.

I'm sure many people are wondering this, but what is the general style of end-game armor in Age of Conan? For example, are there dresses with ridiculous shoulder pieces? Or are there really cool metal armors and shields with spikes that look realistic yet also impose a, "Don't mess with me or your skull will be on display" kind of message? Basically what I'm asking is will the armor look insanely cool? Will there be weapons that cause fear in your enemies? Will there be shields you don't want to get bashed with?

Secondly, will everyone be running around in the exact same armor? Or is there a large variety of armor and looks for specific armor? One thing I have yet to see in an MMORPG is the exact same armor set with slight variations (and I don't just mean color, but added effects that one can purchase or create to add to their favorite piece).

All of the armor in the game will be largely be “in-character” and realistic within the spirit of the world. So while there may be skull helmets, helmet with horns, and other “stretching reality” sorts of things, they won’t be bright purple with flashing lights and built-in spell effects. Some of the armor may be elaborate and some of the armor may even be colorful, but it’s all been drawn from the history of our own world as well as Robert E. Howard’s texts and other official Conan-type sources. It will all look like it belongs in the world, like something you could reasonably expect to find in a museum in our world, with small twists and hints of fantasy here and there. So, yes, you might see a skull helmet or Viking-style horns, but it’s probably not going to be pink.

As for the exact same armor, it’s doubtful. With the number of armor sets available in the game (and each set consisting of several pieces), it’s fairly easy to pick people out based on what they’re wearing and/or define your own unique look.