During GDC today we got another look at Age of Conan, the upcoming fantasy MMORPG from developer Funcom that takes place in the universe made famous by Robert E. Howard's novels. One thing we got to see in this build that we didn't see at CES is the character customization screen. Age of Conan gives you the choice of three playable factions and we got to see how you can alter the shape of your playable creation at will. You can make him look like a Conan like muscle bound warrior or something smaller and thinner. There are also tons of facial choices you can choose from, including hair and facial hair styles.

As in CES, the build of Age of Conan we saw today was running on Vista in DirectX10 but this time the level of detail in the graphics was greatly improved with lush vegetation, detailed armor for your character to wear and more. While there are still bugs in the build (particularly a shadow bug), the visuals were a few steps above what we have seen previously

We also got to see some live PvE combat as we saw our player charter team up with other live players on an Age of Conan server. We got to see some examples of the game's way of using fighting game like combos to string attacks together to take on foes. We were told that magic figures into the combat as well with different kinds of magic spells available. The game itself takes place over 185 square miles. While your player starts out as a solo character the game will eventually allow you to gain power and even build your own cities (you will also be able to lay siege to player built cities.

The game is being developed for both the PC and Xbox 360 consoles which means the game can be played with either a mouse-keyboard combo or an Xbox 360 controller. There is still no word yet on if PC and Xbox 360 player will be able to join on the same servers. The game is still set for release this October with beta testing opening up to more and more players in the months ahead.

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