The Anvil of Crom: Journey through the Grasslands

The assassin moved forward, slowly, the soles of his padded boots gliding soundlessly over the dense packing of leaves and mulch that formed the forest floor. His eyes darted this way and that, scarred hands never far from the ivory-inlaid hilts of the blades hanging loosely at his waist. Quickening his pace, he ducked and dodged around the endless stalks of greenish bamboo that reached for the canopy high above.

Thin sunbeams bathed portions of the glade in an otherworldly light. They also cast parts of the dense bamboo thicket into semi-darkness, and it was from one of these dim pockets that the bear emerged. A towering, snarling monstrosity, it leered at the assassin, then charged. Stalks of bamboo snapped and splintered in its path as the assassin whirled and fled. The ground shook as the beast gained; he felt its breath on his neck as he emerged from the forest into blinding sunlight. A rock wall loomed ahead of him and he leaped for it, his feet finding purchase on the tiny ledges as he scrambled up the sheer side of the cliff. Panting, he finally reached the summit and turned to watch the stalks of bamboo swaying far below him like a sea of grass that parted as the beast rumbled back into the undergrowth.

Sneak past the cut for more.
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So Khitai's Northern Grasslands zone is pretty darned fun, especially now that I can load into it and run it at acceptable frame rates. It's not called "the Crashlands" in global chat for nothing though, as load times and performance remain in need of some tweaking, even on good hardware. That said, there's a huge, new far-eastern landmass to explore, and the varied terrain and crazy-detailed visuals can make for some heart-pounding encounters like the one in the prologue. Running under DirectX 10 with the sliders maxed actually makes for a more challenging PvE environment, since many mobs are obscured by the rolling grasses or, in my assassin's case, a thick forest of bamboo straight off the set of House of Flying Daggers.

Thanks to his cliff-scaling abilities and a strategically timed potion, my assassin was able to survive his close encounter (despite starting it at half health, which, to an Age of Conan squishy, normally equals one or two hits). The breathlessness and spontaneity of the encounter was something that I haven't experienced much of in MMORPGs lately, and it was a refreshing reminder of what can be done when top-notch art direction and world design comes together.

Pulling back a bit to take a high-level look at the Grasslands zone, we can see that it's the second Rise of the Godslayer expansion area you're likely to encounter when playing Age of Conan (the first being the level 20 to 40 Gateway to Khitai playfield). The Grasslands lie beyond the great wall at the Gateway's eastern edge, and due to the many dangers within, you'll need to get your character to level 80 prior to entering. Once you traverse the wall, be sure to talk to Astreas, a sour-faced gaijin who will introduce you to the region's major factions. Quests are quite plentiful around the courtyard just inside the wall, though curiously the interior of the wall itself is devoid of them. It does offer a spectacular amount of explorable area though, as well as detailed NPCs and room environments. Your inner wanderer might want to do what I did and run along the wall's length just for the sheer fun of gawking at the enormous sense of scale.

Most of the quests found near the wall are solo affairs and will lead you to the nearby village of Chow as well as Mirror Lake to the south. Chow features your first set of opposing faction quests, so be prepared to choose between the (seemingly) benevolent Children of Yag-kosha and the vile Priests of Yun. Dungeoneers don't have to look far for their first taste of new content either, as the Kang Pagoda looms large just beyond the courtyard and offers several quests relating to the grotesque Po-Sha, as well as epic mob grinding for mastery XP, loot drops, and faction tokens.

Down the road a piece after the village of Chow lies the frontier town of Pin Pin. Here you'll find additional faction quest-givers as well as a bind-point, and most of your Grasslands excursions will start or end here as it's centrally located and features handy vendors. North of Pin Pin are the faction camps of the Hyrkanians and the Wolves of the Steppes, representing another in a long line of choices to make. Judging by the number of wolf mounts I've seen, it looks like the Hyrkanians are decidedly less popular, at least on Wiccana.

The horse-lords also have two of the more annoying quests in the zone, in the form of a race course that requires a fair amount of trial and error to determine the proper path, and some silliness involving snake bites and timed runs back to the originating NPC, all of which are currently conspiring to make me rue this particular faction choice. That said, I don't regret it enough to undertake the substantial grind required to change over to the Wolves, and that Hyrkanian horse is the light at the end of my annoying-quest tunnel.

South of Pin Pin, the zone features exquisitely rendered wooded areas, in the form of the Forest of August Gloom and the Bamboo Forest. Both are surrounded by rock formations, ruined villages, and in the latter's case, a mountainous region leading to the Warmonk Monastery. The former cozies up to the village of Mei-Dianwafu, which serves as another mini-quest hub. If it sounds like a lot of ground to cover, it is, and the Northern Grasslands is certainly a zone in which you'll want to travel by mount.

Quest progression is fairly random throughout the zone; there aren't many hand-holding chains that lead you from one region to the next, but rather a series of faction NPCs with whom you can choose to work. Many of their jobs are repeatable (though this isn't always apparent by looking at the "completed" section of your journal, unfortunately), providing ample opportunity to both explore the huge zone and grind your faction and alternate advancement XP.

When you've tired of the faction quests (and made a few friends), the zone offers quite a bit of group fun as well. In addition to the aforementioned Kang Pagoda, you can explore the Warmonk Monastery (which features three separate 6-man instances) as well as the Pillars of Heaven, another 6-man dungeon. We'll save a detailed analysis of these instances for a future column, as we're out of time for this week. Until next time, I leave you with what is still the best concept art ever, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with Khitai.

Jef Reahard is an Age of Conan beta and launch day veteran, as well as the creator of Massively's weekly Anvil of Crom. Feel free to suggest a column topic, propose a guide, or perform a verbal fatality via jef@massively.com.