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CES 07: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Updated Impressions

By Jason Ocampo, GameSpotPosted Jan 8, 2007 4:25 pm PT

Funcom shows off Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures looking better than ever thanks to DirectX 10.

LAS VEGAS--Age of Conan: Hyberion Adventures is on display at the Consumer Electronics Show, and while the version on display doesn't feature any new gameplay additions since we saw the game last month, it does feature one major new feature. For the first time, Age of Conan is running using DirectX 10, the new version of Microsoft's gaming technologies, and the results are prettier than the DirectX 9 version of the game.

According to Funcom's Jorgen Tharaldsen, the development team spent most of the holidays working hard to get DirectX 10 support into the game in time for CES. The results have paid off. Age of Conan is one of two games on the show floor using DirectX 10 (Crysis from EA and Crytek being the other). The DirectX 10 version looks better than the impressive DirectX 9 version of the game. There's more foliage than in the DirectX 9 version, as well as better lighting and shadowing and better-looking characters. Funcom showed off the visuals using a looping in-game cutscene, and we got to see some incredible reflections on water surfaces when the camera flew through a port town.

While the visuals did display a little slowdown in some intensive scenes, the demo averaged more than 35 frames per second, and Tharaldsen said that there was still plenty that Funcom could do to optimize and improve the frame rate. At this point, the action-heavy massively multiplayer role-playing game that lets you create a character and explore the world of Robert E. Howard's famous barbarian is entering the final phase of development, and Funcom plans to spend a lot of time between now and launch tuning and bug-fixing the game

22 Comments

  • OdinB

    Posted Mar 1, 2007 7:56 am PT

    We are on the verge of a breakthrough in MMO gaming and all you people are moaning about are the framerates??? Sounds like you should be buying this for the 360. Gameplay people thats whats gonna make this game.

    Finally a game where i dont have to press 1 wait 3 seconds 2 wait 3 seconds to fight!

  • Alcotamaysees

    Posted Jan 12, 2007 3:51 pm PT

    This game looks alright. I hope the requirements are too high.

  • grizly-sword

    Posted Jan 12, 2007 1:26 am PT

    Gonna be a Really good game.

  • rbergan

    Posted Jan 11, 2007 9:09 pm PT

    You people are harping over 35fps waaaay too much. It's running at 35fps on dx10 because they just got the damn thing running on it. By the time it's released you won't have ANYthing to worry about-- optimization is one of the last phases of software development, give them a little bit of time.

    This game looks good though. I've been waiting for a combat system like this for a long time, Darkfall promised it but I'm wondering if they'll ever get that one out the door at this point. I'm looking forward to some drunken bar fights as well.

  • stabio

    Posted Jan 11, 2007 6:00 am PT

    How will the framerate affect the fighting in game?
    Will the melee or spellcasting be affected by a big framerate hit?

    For example: Say I am a Warrior type and I am meleeing a rat and there is no other players within the clip range I have set up. When a group of players first enters the clip plane, my computer takes a slight lag and framerate hit to draw up these characters so I may see them. Using their combat system, which is not an auto fight system, that could potentially cause me to miss a swing or two or miscast some spells, if the timing was right.

  • gacmyver

    Posted Jan 10, 2007 11:47 am PT

    Come on guys, the game is relatively far from finish, they'll fix most of the issues for sure! On another note, I've been following this game a while and it's probably the game you should get if you didn't like wow or guild wars (played wow 1,2years and gw 3months). I've also really drooled over the Warhammer mmo!

    biggie ups for funcom for making this Mature rating! aaaaight!

  • lmzz

    Posted Jan 10, 2007 10:52 am PT

    www.exodusgs.com - The Warrior Within

  • Gurnadar

    Posted Jan 10, 2007 6:29 am PT

    is it really dx 10 game

  • cobrax80

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 9:35 pm PT

    this seems like an o.k MMORPG

  • cjcr_alexandru

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 12:04 pm PT

    Another cool looking PC game...

  • Re_ensurer

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 10:57 am PT

    I'm not too interested in this game.

  • spacklechack

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 9:01 am PT

    If they have motion blur on the entire scene 100% of the time, then it only needs to run at 24fps and your brain won't know the difference. Without motion blur though, it will definitely need to average a lot higher.

  • Hellbounder

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 6:25 am PT

    vmfstorm1 - it says "averaged more then 35" meaning it had some lowpoints like 10 fps (which is low by any standard) and some highpoints like 50. gotcha?

    oh, btw, it's great to hear they are aproaching final phase, this means they'll soon enough be looking for those precious beta testers.

  • medevil_dead

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 3:12 am PT

    Looks really amazing...

  • dergy

    Posted Jan 8, 2007 9:09 pm PT

    hey, i dont care what it runs at. as long as i dont have to play GW or WOW, or even RuneScape...i'd down with it.

  • vmfstorm1

    Posted Jan 8, 2007 7:00 pm PT

    35 fps is not low at all and your dumb to think it is. Most games run at about 40, and for a game thats not nearly finished with production yet its pretty good.

  • Ikthog

    Posted Jan 8, 2007 6:36 pm PT

    Oh, come on, it's not even in beta yet, and they literally added the DX10 code within the last few weeks. Gamespot should know better than to post such specific information in a preview like this, as it serves no purpose but to inspire kneejerk reactions.

  • Pete5506

    Posted Jan 8, 2007 6:23 pm PT

    Now this I will get

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Jan 8, 2007 5:30 pm PT

    im gonna hope they fix these bugs because i do not buy games with that low of a framreate

  • serbogen

    Posted Jan 8, 2007 5:28 pm PT

    AVERAGE 35 FPS.? That's simply not enough. Hopefuly the really do need to optimise more. What kind of machine was it running on I wonder?

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