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KINGDOM COME
Director Gaute Godager Reveals Why Age of Conan - and the Barbarian Himself - Rule
LQGaming Services:: Sweet! What regions of Hyboria will you encounter? What races?
Gaute Godager: When the game begins, you have access to three countries: Aquilonia, Cimmeria and Stygia. Players start from these three races as well.
Aquilonians are sort of like a dark Roman culture. Cimmerians are descended from the Atlantian survivors and the race from which Conan also descends. Finally, the Stygians are a twisted race of Set worshipers focusing more on magic and evil religions. Stygia resembles a dark ancient Egyptian culture.
The three races will have different abilities, each have different classes available to them and all also feature different looks and home towns. They will have to interact and cooperate against the arch-enemy of this game, as defined by the story.
LQGaming Services:: Mind sharing a little bit about how the single-player component works? The multiplayer? And how the two interact with one another?
Gaute Godager: As you start out this game, you have no clue as to who you were before. You become conscious on a galley slave ship where you are one of the slaves rowing and being hounded by slave-drivers. (If you are a female, you are chained to the wall, further back, among lush cushions. scantily-clad, but still a slave.)
This is the prelude to a story-driven epic that happens in the Barachan Isles, and where you play by yourself - or almost by yourself - all the time. In these first 20 (of 80) levels you have a dark, sinister story to unravel where you are part of a larger picture where your fate is bound tightly to that of King Conan in Aquilonia.
You still play on our online servers, but everything else is like a single-player game. We might have other players appear for you (and you for them) in public places like inns and marketplaces, as this would simply enhance the illusion of being in a city, but you play all alone, solving all tasks and doing all deeds as a single adventurer.
These first 20 levels will be available for your playing pleasure as long as you want without any subscription fee. If you want to access the following 20 levels, and the three countries mentioned above, most likely some form of subscription payment method will be enabled.
LQGaming Services:: How much of the story/setting comes from the comic books and movies? How much from Robert Howard's novels?
Gaute Godager: Hmm. Howard novels: 60%, Hyborian Adventures book series from Penguin books 30%, comics 10%? This is just a loose guess...
LQGaming Services:: What kind of enemies will you encounter? And how many will be familiar to fans of Conan's earlier exploits?
Gaute Godager: A multitude of monsters and enemies from Conan's world will be encountered in the game. Without dropping names of actual encounters, you will find Picts; giant apes; Black Ones; bandits of all types and races; snakes, snakes and more snakes; demons and gods. All are in there. So, yes, if you know the lore, you will enjoy this game like no other interactive representation of Hyboria to date!
LQGaming Services:: Epic battles: How do they work? What sorts of formations can you create? How many people can participate? The kind of NPCs you can command include.?
Gaute Godager: Epic battles are found in many forms. The most common one will be seen as a siege. You lay siege to monster villages/keeps/strongholds with your guild and friends, or you defend yourself against them.
In this setting, you will use siege engines, hired mercenaries or henchmen as individual heroes or in formations. There are several types of formations to be used in this setting, and they can be grouped basically into three types:
1. Dig-in formations. These are used to block access to certain areas by letting you defend them, stop charges, or fire ranged special attacks against other areas. The noteworthy aspect of these is that they bestow large defensive bonuses and provide a means through which to keep people out.
2. Moving formations. These are used to do more massive damage, smash dig-in formations, and knock individual monsters/players out of the way. Options include berserker charges, rows of knights riding or whatnot. Characters in these formations won't collide as they flow and move and these tactics are extremely offensive in nature.
3. Party formations. These are smaller, but hold a mix of the two above attributes. They can enable offensive or defensive bonuses, let you dig in for shorter amounts of time, or enable charged special attacks...
The exact types of NPCs you can command are still under balance and construction, so I will have to get back to you on that. Most noteworthy are the "followers" who are personal trained NPCs that serve as permanent members of your mini-party.
LQGaming Services:: Let's talk more about sieges. What sorts of cool stuff can we expect from them? Some of the machines of death you'll offer are? And how does one guild lay siege to another's holdings?
Gaute Godager: Technologically, you can build a multitude of machines of war with our system. Catapults, siege towers, trebuchets, and battering rams are all options. Exactly which of these will make it into the final product remains to be seen. As for guild conflicts, one guild challenges an NPC village or another guild's village by interacting with a challenge object in front of the gates of the village.
LQGaming Services:: What sort of factions, if any, can be formed in the game?
Gaute Godager: Factions are not a major part of Conan. We use them only for social bending of rules (e.g. dressing up to get into shops for rich patrons, etc).
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