The Tortage effect: unravelling the magic of the early AoC levels

Age of Conan, like any MMO, has its fans and its haters. Even its fans still find plenty to criticize, and even the haters tend to admit that it does some things really well. When fans and critics collide, one of the questions that's almost always thrown at the fans is 'Okay, you love it now, but what level are you?' The clear message is that the early game can give such a good impression of AoC that it distorts what the overall game is really like. We might get a little tired of Tortage after the third or fourth run-through, but it's still arguably the game at its best - which is presumably why it's the first bit you see.

So why is it that Tortage works so well? What's different about that setup that vanishes after level 20 or so?

One obvious factor is the voice acting. Age of Conan features some of the best voice acting in any MMO to date, and it can be a shock to finally get off Tortage and find all your quest-givers are suddenly silent. A level of immersion that was there before is gone, and it's odd how much you can miss that kind of thing. The quality of dialog writing, as we've investigated in the past, is also extremely high.

The Tortage levels also focus on the player, whereas later ones don't. The change can be surprising. Returning to your homeland throws you out of a city where the story so far has been all about you, into a much larger area where you're just one of thousands of similar characters. Even though you'd been running all sorts of unrelated Tortage quests in the daytime, the destiny quests at night focused on your character, their fate and their background. They're even customized to take your class and homeland into account. Once out of Tortage, though, you'll have to go through ten whole levels before taking on another destiny quest and exploring the next chapter in your fate.

Is it reasonable to expect Funcom to have kept up the Tortage level of focus on your character? Probably not, but there are other directions they could have gone in - and still could take - to make the AoC experience post level 20 a richer one. Most importantly, they could make more of the game's potential for factions, potential that Tortage does utilise.

It's not immediately obvious, but the main change after Tortage is the complete lack of faction. After level 20, when you return to your homeland, you don't stand for anything in particular any more. The quest contacts approach you not as a potential hero or ally, but as a runner of errands. Yes, the player has a culture - Stygian, Cimmerian or Aquilonian - but that's not the same as having a faction. Factions cause conflict.

So what was your faction in Tortage? You were a freed slave, allied to the Resistance, and the opposing faction was Strom and his Red Hand. There's no drama without conflict, and conflict has to mean something more than just random fighting. The player has to be on some sort of a side. It doesn't matter whether you're a Hero or a Villain in CoX; what matters is that you have a side. Equally, it doesn't matter whether you're Horde or Alliance in WoW. Having a faction is what counts, not because it constrains the player, but because it makes what happens to the player meaningful in the context of the game world.

In Age of Conan, you can be Stygian if you want to - but nobody will have a problem with you because of it, unless they're a player who's roleplaying. You're not going to end up in a fight because you were Stygian, nor will you do anything in the cause of Stygia. It almost seems as if player guilds were looked to as a source of factional conflict, rather than the game having to supply any. The region that probably comes closest to giving a sense of faction is Conall's Valley, where the bloody conflict between Cimmerians and Vanir is in full sway, and the player feels drawn into it.

It's this blogger's opinion that much of the criticism of AoC's later game can be traced to this abrupt loss of a sense of side-taking after Tortage. The player goes from being a hero of the Resistance to being an aimless mercenary rattling about in an enormous, indifferent environment.

Funcom can still turn this situation around. All they need to do is use the immense potential in the Conan IP, and recognise that players want to belong to particular sides. What works in Tortage will work just as well in the later game. Factionalism lends meaning and richness to content, and keeps the player from feeling like a glorified errand boy. As a Set-worshipping Stygian, I don't want to be blessed in the name of Mitra by patronizing Aquilonian priests who treat me just like anyone else. I want to smash their statues, cast serpents into their holy wells, and preach the ophidian gospels to their cowed people. And if any Aquilonian players have a problem with that, then at least we'll have something meaningful to PvP over.