Age of Conan is an upcoming Mature rated MMORPG set to be released on May 20th, 2008 for the PC and later on for the 360. Age of Conan offers pretty much everything, from open-world PvP and arena PvP contests to large-scale player-versus-environment (PvE) dungeon and raiding encounters. The Age of Conan series is set in the Hyborian Age, a fantasy setting created by Robert E. Howard in 1932. Age of Conan itself takes place within the continent of the Hyborian kingdoms, a year after the events depicted in Howard's sole Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon. Age of Conan will have the standard 30 day free trial and will cost 14.95 monthly.

Real Combat: "We call the engine Real Combat, and it is based on six directions, or ways, of attacking an opponent with a sword. First, you can hack down against the head. Second, you can slash diagonally down from the right, while the third is slashing the same way from the left. Fourth, you can thrust against the torso. Fifth, you can slash diagonally up from the left, and sixth, you can slash diagonally up from the right. The point here is that these directions lend themselves naturally to being strung together in combinations. These combos unlock additional damage and faster combat, if done well" -Gaute Godager, Game Director

Siege Warfare: There are many PvP modes in Age of Conan, however the siege battles between guilds will be the cream of the crop. Players must build villages, harvest resources, and craft objects in order to fully establish a battlekeep within the game. The longer you're able to hold a battle keep, the more powerful it becomes, rewarding guilds with better organization and defensive strategies. Currently, after two weeks your battle keep moves from tier one to tier two, and after another two weeks upgrades to tier three. To successfully take over a city, you must first set up camp and build siege weapons like catapults and trebuchets to break down walls and defense towers (which contain defensive weapons that can be fired back at the sieging team). Once the walls are broken, the offensive team can swarm into the structure and, ultimately, destroy the city's keep.

If you want to get the best armor and weapons by PvEing in Age of Conan, you're going to have to raid, something you can't actually engage in until you hit level 80. There'll still be dungeons that players can band together and delve into before the cap, but for large-scale, 24-player encounters against enormous bosses that require highly coordinated attack patterns to defeat, you'll have to wait until the end game. Raiding in Age of Conan doesn't only revolve around getting all 24 raiders to smash on the same target. During boss encounters, environmental objects might need to be triggered at specific times to open up potential damage opportunities. Part of the challenge of raiding is simply figuring out how best to tackle the bosses by studying their behaviors and attack patterns. The most skilled players in Age of Conan will recieve even better gear from PvP battles.