Conan to offer 250 hours of levelling

By Oli Welsh Published 19 May, 2008

Level fast, die young.

As covered in our launch event report, Funcom has revealed that it will take around 250 hours of play to reach the level cap of 80 in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

Speaking at last week's launch event game director Gaute Godager said, "We have budgeted - because that's what you do, you budget people's time when you make these types of games - a levelling curve which is on average 250 hours of gameplay."

Godager pointed out that for the first three quarters of that curve, levelling will be a lot faster than is common in MMOs - partly so he himself can get some progress in.

"I'm not really a hardcore player, I pretend to be," said Godager. "I said that I want to make a game that I can enjoy. When I sit down for a gaming session, I use two to three hours, and in that time I would like to gain a level."

Age of Conan is out on Friday, and Eurogamer MMO is marking the event with a dedicated Age of Conan week. Stay tuned to find out more about how you'll be spending those 250 hours in Hyboria.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • NickD7 #1 4 years ago

    Is today official Conan day ?

  • Miths #2 4 years ago

    So as usual with MMORPGs all the hardcore players will reach the level cap within a couple of weeks :p.

    I was never one of those, but I gotta admit that after making the switch to console gaming only, I do miss spending some time in assorted MMOs - but hopefully they will be coming soon enough (including Age of Conan, though as usual I would certainly prefer to to use my PS3 rather than my old, noisy 360).

  • bengray66 #3 4 years ago

    I won't be playing because there is no mac version.... So my MMO's are somewhat limited to WoW &.... Nothing....

    On the plus side, i will have 250 hours of free time hoorah!
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 15:57

  • penhalion #4 4 years ago

    Can I just ask the question every sane person is asking

    Why?

  • mingster #5 4 years ago

    AM i the only person who thinks Conan looks decidedly 'Meh' from what i've seen & read of it.

  • Danoxth #6 4 years ago

    The fact that its a 32gb install screams 'holy shit' at console users.

    Be interested to see how they do it, either way I sense you'll need one of the bigger HDD on the market, and frankly they can sod off :)

  • tobsen #7 4 years ago

    Sometimes I envy people who have so much free time to kill.... But on the other hand, I really don't ;)

  • Gurgeh #8 4 years ago

    "Funcom has revealed that it will take around 250 hours of play to reach the level cap of 80 in Age of Conan"

    Interesting as characters are already in their mid-30s on the prelaunch servers - ie. almost half way to cap and the game hasn't launched yet.

  • Benno #9 4 years ago

    well lvl 30 isn't going to be almost half way. 40 wont be half way.

    The half way point in wow at the moment i would say lies around 50-55 (out of 70). Levels get bigger as you go on you know :D

  • paulf #10 4 years ago

    seems to be a good balance - i think it took me over twice that long to level my first lev 60 in wow (2 years ago) - of course if the levelling is too much grinding and not enough fun questing it may not be worth investing the time

  • Turambar #11 4 years ago

    "The fact that its a 32gb install screams 'holy shit' at console users."

    Stop spreading this myth. My install is 25GB, fully patched.

  • Madlax #12 4 years ago

    "The fact that its a 32gb install screams 'holy shit' at console users."

    Thats less than one blu-ray disk.

    Unless you were referring to the 360.

  • Perjoss #13 4 years ago

    "its a 32gb install"

    I lol'd... this is a joke right?

  • Danoxth #14 4 years ago

    @ Turambar

    Only going by what Eurogamer themselves tell me :)

    Fair enough they refer to the open beta client, but surely they couldn't have taken away 7gb of data as I imagine by the time open beta had arrived DVD's would have been off at the printers.
    Edited by 1 at 19/05/08 @ 19:08

  • Sar #15 4 years ago

    250 hours is how long it took me to get my Hero to the level 50 cap in CoH. But a more dedicated player would probably beat that by a good 150 hours or more.

  • davisorle #16 4 years ago

    If I reached from lvl 60 ( with full rest bonus though ) to lvl 70 with my warrior in less than a week then it scares me for preordering the collector's.... omfg If i reach lvl 80 within a few weeks I'll so post every kinds of shit against them... I was hoping this will make the next step after WoW but wtf is wrong with them? They NOW tell me no DX10 ingame yet and that its a matter of a few weeks to reach cap lvl? Are they stupid? Don't they ever learn? I think this will go down just like my Lotro preorder...

    @Madlax

    Who cares if it's a 32, 25 or 50 gigs? It's coming out on the xbox 360 and not PS3. You can look that up and when am i going to stop hearing about damn BRs?

  • Bitkari #17 4 years ago

    So, for how much of this 250hr+ of gameplay am I going to be enjoying myself?

    If it's anything like most current MMOs I'll spend the first few hours learning lots of new things, and having fun, then resign myself to many hours of tedious grind just so that I can stay at a level where there are actually other human players about.

    Someone really needs to design an MMO where I don't actually need to spend 250hours playing the sodding thing!



  • élbéróss #18 4 years ago

    @ Bitkari

    they did, i think its called guild wars..

  • Ofoug #19 4 years ago

    I'm in Early Access and so far I'd say the leveling IS somewhat fast compared to WoW. I like to run around and explore, read all the quest dialog etc, i.e. not exactly powerleveling. With that I've invested around 22 hours so far, and I'm conveniently also a bit into level 22. I'f I'd been more effective I'd be 25-30 as most others on my server seem to have become in roughly the same time.

    There is, however, one exception... one player has already hit lvl 53 last I looked. 24/7 playing can't possibly be enough for that though, he's gotta have figure out some inbalance or exploit. The most hardcore players after him are around 30-35...

    It does feel strange however, this faster leveling. At least when you're so used to WoW... but if the plan is to make it quicker to level at first then maybe slow it down alot more at later levels it should balance out anyways. Either way, fast or slow, I'm having tons of fun =)

  • Pulsar_t #20 4 years ago

    I can't be bothered with leveling up in old school rpgs so why should I bother with MMO's? Are they going to make one which involve more than statistical skills?

  • Gurgeh #21 4 years ago

    "well lvl 30 isn't going to be almost half way. 40 wont be half way. "

    Some characters have apparently hit the level 80 cap now. Seems like there are a few exploits in this game...

  • Darkjinxter #22 4 years ago

    Friday?
    I thought the release date was the 20th of May and has been for the last six months. When did Funcom push it back for us Euronumpties?

  • hula hoops #23 4 years ago

    I can't be bothered with leveling up in old school rpgs so why should I bother with MMO's? Are they going to make one which involve more than statistical skills?

    Why should you be bothered about MMO if this is not your cup of tea .. so move along now, nothing to see here.

    What the hell is "statistical skill" anyway? Ability to calculate standard deviation and variance?

  • spimmy #24 4 years ago

    hmmm i hope theres atleast some end game content out soon and doesnt flop like vanguard and Tabula Rasa

  • Zoink #25 4 years ago

    I expect a hefty xp nerf within a month or so of launch...

  • ado #26 4 years ago

    im thinking of getting it do u think ill be a ble to run it with a geforce 7900 gs a dual core 2.13 ghz cpu and 2 gb of ram?

  • Trikk #27 4 years ago

    I'm also in Early Access, played it since 17th. Currently level 30 with one level 6 alt. 250 hours average sounds about right for 80, of course rushing is possible though as in any game.