Faq/Gameworld

From WikiAOC

[edit] 14.1 How big is the world in Age of Conan?

As big as our own! Alright, that’s not quite fair.

The world of Hyboria, crafted by Robert E. Howard and other writers, is basically a fictional version of Earth thousands of years ago. As a result, there is a lot of ground to cover. In Age of Conan, we’ve focused on developing regions found within the three nations of Aquilonia, Cimmeria, and Stygia, as well as the Barachan Isles.

[edit] 14.2 Is the game world seamless, or is it based on zones?

Age of Conan is based on zones. We’ve built a world that’s packed full of detail. For example, with enough graphical horsepower, trees and grass can move in the breeze, ships can bob on the ocean, and so on. In addition to the performance reasons, there’s another very good reason to make a zoned world. Hyboria is based on Earth itself, and you may have noticed that Earth is rather big! We wanted to take you to some of the locations from the book, not necessarily all the other places in between. Therefore, we chose to focus our design on making engrossing areas packed with all the things you remember from the books.

[edit] 14.3 How many zones are there in the game?

There are dozens of different zones (or regions, as we call them). We’ve chosen specific areas chosen from Aquilonia, Stygia, and Cimmeria, and you’ll cross burning deserts, freezing mountains covered with snow and yetis, great cities, and all sorts of other places. We’ve picked these regions specifically because they are major centers of the Conan lore.

[edit] 14.4 How do players move between the regions?

There will be some form of “travel time,” be it a loading screen with an indicator of your progress, a caravan/boat/horse trip, or some combination of all of those. Often, the regions in Age of Conan can be far apart, and it would require a lot of running to get from point A to point B, so we’ve focused on fun over authentic travel.

[edit] 14.5 How intelligent are the computer-controlled characters in the game world?

Our AI is extremely elaborate, and a lot of the more intelligent beasts and characters have been built around a needs-based AI system based loosely around Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This system categorizes several distinct needs, like eating, sleeping, and surviving, and NPCs will patrol, wander off to get a drink, call his friends to come attack encroaching players, just as examples.

[edit] 14.6 Are there any factions in the game world?

No. There will not be any factions as you know them from other MMO games. This is a design choice we made based on our experiences with other systems, as we found they tend to lead to a lot of grinding and repetitive gameplay.

On another note, the three races are not “factions,” or “sides,” either. Stygians can talk to and team up with whoever they care to, for example.

With that said, there will be lots of lore-based groups and organizations at work in the game, and you will run across them in your travels. You will not, however, have to grind for their favors.

[edit] 14.7 How will players be able to traverse the world?

On foot will be the usual manner for most players, but once you’ve bought a mount, you can use it to get from place to place.