Update: BTW, this is the feat build I’m planning to have at 80 atm.

So, the early access started yesterday, they delayed it by 4 hours but then it went pretty much smooth. I’ve no idea why Funcom decided to put only 2 FFA PvP servers per region - 15 minutes after the launch there was a 3 minute queue to login to our server (EU Fury), but other than that I’ve no complains on technical site. They just started the very first maintenance (there was a short one today in the morning but it resulted just in one d/c for everybody and servers were up and running) estimated for 2 hours - thus I’ve got the time to write this post ;).

I’ve slept for like 4 hours after playing whole night, I’m not the king of grind and I don’t know what quests to take and how to level the most effective way, but I’m sitting at 24th level atm, which is pretty average for people playing since the first hour of early access. So far I’m very happy about how it turned out, I’ve tried barbarian in closed beta and I’m very happy to see many concerns with the class fixed.

I was expecting a total bloodbath with FFA PvP, and I’ve say that I’m surprised. Sure people are killing each other, a lot, but many times I’ve been on one spot hunting for quest mobs with 3 other people and we somehow didn’t kill each other. Guilds are formed and getting members, some are quite big and already recognizable like RUScorp (pretty much on my KoS list :P). The climate that Funcom has built in the game is perfect, it’s just brilliant, I’m not an expert on the Conan lore, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s supposed to look like. There are those little awesome things around, like fatalities, I was afraid (and not only me) about fatalities, since you loose control over your character while doing a fatality, but that’s nothing for the pure awesomeness of chopping someone’s head off, or impaling him with your axe and laughing into his face (literally, the character laughs) while getting 20% damage boost and huge stamina regen that allows you to annihilate everything else that’s still alive`. A simple quote from chat channel really captures what’s going on atm:

Guy1: So, people don’t get PK tagged for senseless killing?
Guy2: Senseless killing = Conan.

No one will be sad if you die, and if you get in somebody’s way, be ready to get annihilated, unless you are better. The problem with sandbox style PvP is that it’s heavily Dependant on the community, much more than controlled PvP like the one in WoW is - there are no factions, it’s players who decide who is your friend and who is your enemy. It has potential, and so far it seems to be a running success, it’s not a WoW killer, it’s something much different - in fact I think it would make a better game if they removed the PvP minigames completely (CTF and team annihilation), been there once so far and I’m not temped to play it again.

Terhix