I’ve been following the progress of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures for a good couple of years. When it was finally released, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play it or not. Sure, it looked appealing, but I’ve had a somewhat patchy history with MMORPGs as of late, and after jumping head first into Tabula Rasa and quickly becoming bored with it, I didn’t want the same thing to happen with Age of Conan. Playing MMORPGs can become a ridiculously expensive hobby.

A good friend of mine was generous enough to let me try out his copy of the game so I could see if I liked it well enough, and also to make sure it ran decently on my system. The game requires a pretty high-end rig, so I didn’t want to throw $80 into the game, and then have to fork out another $300 for a better video card just to be able to play it.

I’ve been playing Age of Conan for a good fifteen or so hours now, and have tried out a few different classes and races (early levels only), so I figured I’d post my initial impressions of the game. Keep in mind, this is not a review, just the opinion of someone who’s played a few MMOs in her day (I’m still not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing).

First things first, the installation and patching took ages. I was prepared for this, however. Good things come to those who wait, right?

I was very interested to know how character customisation worked. I’d seen screenshots and videos of it, which made it look pretty epic in the amount of customisation you could do to make your character truly your own. I was a little surprised to find that character customisation is somewhat limited. Don’t get me wrong, there’s many more options than World of Warcraft, but it’s still not as great as I thought i would be. There are preset faces, hairstyles and face and body markings to choose from, and while you can go to the advanced options to customise each feature, such as eye angle, jaw width and even breast size, I don’t feel that Funcom were totally correct in saying that you can recognise each player just by looking at them. To a point, you can, but many characters still look alike. Perhaps I was expecting too much. It’s not bad at all, just not quite what I wanted it to be.

When I finally jumped into the actual gameplay, the first thing I thought was that the game didn’t look anywhere near as pretty as it was supposed to be. Into the video settings I went and turned the preset to ‘high’. Wow. The game is actually very, very pretty (just not at all on lower video settings, unfortunately). And not only that, but it has its own art style. It’s not cartoonish like World of Warcraft, yet it’s not trying to look uber realistic like Everquest 2. I actually really like the art style. It reminds me a lot of Star Wars Galaxies, just more high-end and new.

The next major thing that impressed me was how well it ran on my system. For the record, my gaming PC’s glory days have been and gone. It’s a Core 2 Duo E6600, with 2GB of RAM and a 7900GT video card with 128MB of video memory. While my system passes the ‘minimum’ system requirements, the video card doesn’t pass the ‘recommended’ requirements. I was concerned that Age of Conan was going to run so choppy that I’d have to turn off all the eye candy. I was pretty amazed to discover that on ‘high’ settings I was getting an average of 20FPS. With lots of stuff happening on screen, this would probably drop a bit, but it was much better than I expected. On ‘low’ settings, I got about 40FPS on average. I like my eye candy though, so I kept it on ‘high’ and went to the advanced settings for a bit of tweaking. I now get about 25FPS and it still looks very pretty. I’m comforted in the thought that I may not need to upgrade my video card for a little while yet (though, if I get addicted to the game, it may just warrant a purchase).

One thing to note is that for the first 10 or so levels, I wasn’t really enjoying the game. I can’t really put my finger on why this is, but it may have something to do with the fact that it seemed like ‘just another MMO’ and nothing in it really grabbed me. Other than the voice acting (which is pretty good for the most part), and the blood and gore that makes it distinctly Conan, I didn’t see anything that really stood out. The combat system isn’t particularly unique, despite everyones’ claims. You still press keys or click on icons to perform different moves, the only difference is that for regular combat and combo attacks, you need to press the 1, 2, and 3 keys to attack in different directions. This is still button pressing/mouse clicking to me though. I suppose I didn’t find it very different or interesting because I’d come from Tabula Rasa which really does have a unique combat system for an MMO.

There came a point though where my initial opinions of the game changed and I started to really enjoy it. Maybe it was the story becoming more dynamic and interesting, or possibly my realisation that the game has a lot to offer. Where Tabula Rasa felt small and confined, Age of Conan seems very big and wonderous. And I haven’t even left the first area yet; the island of Tortage. Star Wars Galaxies players will know what I’m talking about when I say the game world seems larger than life. No, Age of Conan doesn’t exceed Galaxies in that regard, but I get the feeling that it comes very close. There’s something about Age of Conan that really draws you in and engages you in the world, which - of course - is a vital ingredient in any MMO.

Having said all of the above, it only took me a day of playing the game to decide whether I wanted to continue. The following day, I went out and bought my own copy. Time will tell whether I continue with it, and for how long. But for now I’m enjoying it immensely. There’s much I look forward to, including exploration of new lands, player-made cities, and combat on horseback (or even on a rhino or mammoth for that matter).

Age of Conan shares many similarities with other popular MMOs, but I honestly think it holds its own. The mature content and design of the world makes it feel like a Conan game, so I applaud Funcom for that. I think a lot of veteran MMO players will find that it isn’t unique enough in actual gameplay for them to switch away from whatever MMO they’re currently playing. But it does depend on what you want out of an MMO and the type of setting you prefer. I’m hoping that the more mature content of the game will mean that there’s less annoying kiddies running around trying to fight everyone and more story-drive roleplaying possibilities. Whether that is the case remains to be seen, but I live in hope.

Yay! Finally! It may not be the full version of Spore, but the Creature Creator (trial version) is now available for download for both Mac and PC. You can grab your copy from here. The trial version has has 25% of all body parts to create your crazy creatures.

The full version of the Creature Creator will be available on the 18th of June (12am CDT) for both Mac and PC and contains all body parts to choose from when making your creatures. It costs US$9.95. Unfortunately, it looks like only the PC version has a direct download at this stage. Mac users who purchase from the EA store will have to buy a physical copy on disc and get it posted.

Before trying it, I was under the impression that the Creature Creator (especially the full version that costs $9.95) was just a gimmick to get impatient fans (like me!) to fork out money while they wait for the full version of the game. Having played it for a couple of hours, I can say with confidence that this isn’t the case at all. The Creature Creator is absolutely awesome and I think everyone should give the trial a go at least. Features include building your creatures from selected parts, painting them different colours, getting them to perform different animations, and being able to save your creatures and share them with other players. You can also take screenshots and record video from the game interface itself. It even allows you to upload your videos directly to YouTube. Here’s one I made earlier today:

The Creature Creator really has me excited for the full retail version of the game which will be released on September 7th of this year. Somehow, it doesn’t seem so far away anymore.

Update: It looks like Mac users will be getting a direct download for the full version of the Creature Creator afterall. The EA Store has a link to GameTree Online, TransGaming’s online game sales site. Currently it says ‘Coming Soon’. Whether Mac users will be able to purchase and download at the same time as PC users remains to be seen.

Update: The Mac version of the Spore Creature Creator became available for direct download early this morning (28/06/08). Grab your copy here.

The Apple World Wide Developers Conference for 2008 has been and gone. I didn’t write about it since I figured it already had a great deal of coverage from sites like MacRumors, Engadget and MacTalk. Although the event itself has passed, the iPhone 3G is still a hot topic everywhere, especially over here in Australia where it’s finally getting its first national release. Apple geeks all over the country were jumping for joy, particularly when it came to the new prices. US$199 for the 8GB iPhone and US$299 for the 16GB version definitely sound like attractive prices, but I think the nation celebrated just a wee bit too early.

As it has always been, we pay what has become known as ‘Apple Tax’ for all Apple products here in Australia. There is a huge markup in price compared to the cost of the exact same items in the United States. For example, the base spec MacBook Pro sold in the US costs AU$2,129 for us Aussies at the current exchange rate (US dollar 0.51% of the Aussie dollar). However, buying the MacBook Pro in Australia will actually cost AU$2,699.

Sure, there’s all sorts of reasons for the markup, including importation costs, marketing, differences in buying habits, and all the rest of it. Aussie Apple users are used to this. It’s nothing new. So why is it, then, that many Aussies are so excited about the ‘new’ low iPhone price, when it’s really not going to be the case?

In the US, iPhone users must sign their life away sign up to a 24-month contract, as well as buy the phone for $199 or $299. It’s how phone sales are most commonly done over there. Whilst it is a similar story in Australia, we tend to have more phones that are sold outright, or packaged with pre-paid.

Optus and Vodafone will be the providers for the iPhone in Australia, but as yet, there is no information on pricing for Australia. Both companies have announced that they will also be offering the iPhone for pre-paid customers, so that is something at least. However, many of us are starting to speculate that the iPhone won’t be anywhere near the low price that Steve Jobs announced during the keynote; at least not without forking out big-time per month (upwards of AU$80 a month). Those of us who wish to purchase the iPhone on pre-paid instead of a contract should probably expect prices to be between $500 to $1000 depending on the version, and I’d be inclined to think they’d be locked to the carrier’s network, as well.

Now if only Optus and Vodafone would hurry up and release pricing information so that us Aussies can make an informed decision before July 11th when they’re released. If you ask me, I think both companies are holding out to see which one bites first, so that the other can undercut them.

New Mac Setup - 10th June 2008, originally uploaded by reemixx.

Yeah, yeah, another setup pic, but I’ve finally got things organised now so it’ll be the last for a while.

My new desk is called Fredrik. Don’t worry, I didn’t name it. Ikea did. Every level (desk and shelves) is fully height adjustable, which is great for me because I’m a shorty and get a bit sick of only my tip-toes touching the ground because my chair is on the highest level just so I can reach my desk. There’s plenty of desk space, definitely enough to use a dual monitor setup in the future, or use my MacBook on my desk as well.

Some people don’t quite understand the importance of a clean, comfortable, organised, and visually appealing work environment. Others simply don’t care. That’s fine. To each their own. But the truth is that where you work has a direct impact on how you work. If you don’t like your surroundings, you’re going to be constantly distracted and your productivity will go downhill. A clean and comfortable environment keeps you inspired and clear-headed, even if it happens subconsciously without you realising it.

But that’s an article for another day.

I’ve always thought that Chris Pirillo’s social media aggregation page on his website is an excellent idea. After all, we use so many different web services these days, it’s a good idea to have them all collected in one central place to say “this belongs to me” and have outgoing links to different posts that you’ve made, and incoming links back to your own site.

Short of coding it from scratch, I wasn’t aware of any way to add my own social media aggregation to my website. But today, I found just the thing; a Wordpress plugin by Kieran Delaney called SimpleLife. In a nutshell, it’s a lifestream for all your social media content that has an RSS feed. You can include it in any Wordpress page, or use it as a widget in the sidebar. It includes a few different services built-in, such as Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Last.fm, and Facebook, and includes four other feeds of your choice. Just put in the feed URL and icon and you’re good to go. Well, mostly.

Getting everything to work properly wasn’t quite as smooth as I thought it would be, and there’s still issues I’ve yet to fix. But luckily there’s a lot of documentation on the plugin, and plenty of people posting their own feedback in the comments section. So, if you’re having a problem with it, chances are someone else has already had that problem and there’s now a solution.

The plugin has allowed me to include my own lifestream on reemixx.com, which will update in real time as I make updates to each web service that I use. I’ve found it to be an excellent way to keep track of people’s online activity, and hope it’s of use to some of you.