Rangarig

... and I must say it looks really good. Didn't have more than 10-15 Minutes to play with a (female) character someone else created, but I got to experience the combat system and fiddle around with a few things.

Combat is really nicely done and a lot more interactive than the point-and-click orgies that are WoW, LotRO and so forth. In this case I had the possibility of striking left, striking right or doing an overhand swing - each with varying degrees of success depending on what the enemy (!) was doing! Special skills allow you to increase the chance to strike and power of your regular swings. The weapons I had at my disposal in this short game were a broken oar, a club and a dagger. Not much for now, but it allowed me to dispatch quite a few enemies, including pict savages, a strange sort of guardian monster and giant apes (which dropped bananas).

Also nice is the fact that you can easily fight against 2 or more enemies at the same time when they cluster around you. Although you target one enemy, your swings will hit others if they stand close - damaging them and even knocking them back if you use such an attack.

The graphics also look really good - very realistic in comparison to the competition. I would have liked to explore a bit more than the ruin/pict village/jungle I saw, but that already looked really good and very well done, also with regards to the look and behaviour of enemies.

Interface is easy to use and you'll feel right at home. Buttons for inventory, character sheet, etc. at the top of the screen and an icon bar at the bottom for your combat actions and skills. The map seemed to indicate the target for the current quest - very helpful in comparison with LotRO for instance - and was available with two added layers of parchment map - one showing the immediate surroundings, the other a general overview of the continent - HUGE!

Unfortunately I died after around 10 - 15 minutes and that was it for me. Definitely going to have a closer look though.

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Kaelith

That sounds so sweet! I can't wait to get started

Annoying thing is, I've pre-ordered it, but I'm going on holiday for 3 weeks from mid-may!!

But hopefully in that time they'll have sorted any initial problems, if they have any.

It's going to be incredible!

Rangarig

I could not see anything specific that was wrong with it in that short time, but the gentleman from FUNCOM said they were on target with their release date. I guess that means they are happy with their product and FUNCOM are generally very good with the quality of their games.

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Davey

judging purely on AO which was shit on launch and i mean shit, and it was laggy for a long time after too

Aeribian IV

AO?!

Welcome to 1998!

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