When you're a 70-year-old franchise that has seen several movies, comics, and even had a governor play you, where else can you really go from there? How about a MMORPG? And how about one of the slickest, most gruesome, MMORPGs around? If you answered yes, then welcome to the club, because literally, after seeing just a handful of minutes of the game, I was already calculating how much it would take to get my PC to run this beast when it is released. Until then, read on about what you have to look forward to with Age of Conan and why you should be just as excited as we are.

You start out on a galley ship as a slave, row row rowing your boat, but the stream (or ocean as is this case) apparently isn't going to be that gentle, because though we didn't get to see the cutscene that follows the character creation beginning here, we'll assume there is a shipwreck somewhere, because our character soon washes up on the shore of a lush, and beautiful tropical jungle, filled with tons of foliage. But let's go back a bit to talk about the character creation system.

The character creation system of Age of Conan was really detailed and quite nice, and though only the male character creation was completely ready to showoff, the guys did let us catch a glimpse of the females too. The women still need to get their bone structure fixed as they said, but it was enough of a taste so we could see where they were going with things and that we can expect just as much detail from the female avatars as the males. Physical appearance is one of the first things you'll choose, where you'll be able to pick things like your sex, facial styles, scars, tattoos, beards, hair, and much more. Beyond just set facial features, you can also tweak those existing ones so something like a mouth is as small or as big as you want it. After choosing the physical you'll choose your character race which comes in one of three flavors: Aquilonian (think corrupt Roman/Greek), Cimmerian (Celts), and the Stygian (Egyptian-esque). After setting your character up, off to the mainland and battling you are ready to go. When you start off on the mainland, your first hour or so will be a strictly singleplayer adventure, though just because it wants you to fully grasp the controls and the gameplay before you get partying or battling other players. Later on you'll be able to choose from being a mage, priest, warrior, or rogue – each with about four subs – and that will lead to four prestige classes as you move along through the levels and story. Archtypes will be chosen at level five. You'll also have six trade skill tiers to fool around with so you can craft some goods. The final level cap so far for the game is being listed as Level 80.

The big thing about Age of Conan is the combat, which differs greatly from the standard point and click attack method of say a World of Warcraft. In Age of Conan at the bottom of your screen you'll have a directional circle with arrows heading out in different directions. By clicking on an arrow, you'll perform an attack in that direction (for our preview it was a one handed sword). Now, you can choose to only click one direction, but you can chain up to four directional attacks together, and by combining attacks you'll essentially find more powerful attacks, which can lead to such things as some very sweat fatalities – heads getting chopped off, arms getting severed, and guts getting rammed through. The fatalities weren't too gory just yet, but after someone joked about a head would spurt more blood, the guys instantly wanted to know how to get data on how bloody a beheading really would be; these guys wanted to make this as bloody and true to life as they can. The attacks will also attack more than just one person if you swing the correct way; obviously if you slash forward you will only slash the one right in front of you, but if your weapon does a sideways slash, you will be attacking all those people in the arch of that blade.

The game world itself was also quite something, featuring 185 square miles of game world, and such locals as the lush jungle area we saw and an arid desert with sand and camels marching steadily along. There were also a ton of enemy types, ranging from attacking barbarians to snakes to crocodiles, though we did get to see a more robust enemy lineup at the close of the preview. The game, in terms of enemies, will also feature mages, demi-gods, and aliens; basically, if it has been part of Conan canon then expect it in the game. Oh, do we need to go over how beautiful the game was. Highly detailed character avatars and enemies, wonderfully well done armor, and lovely lighting and shadows are just some of the graphical praise we have to lavish on the game.

There will also be three levels of PvP once you meet up with the other players after the singleplayer introduction. You've got drunken brawling (the most basic PvP, but very fun sounding with staggering drunks and everything), arena fights (gladiatorial combat bouts), and guild PvP (guild versus guild battles). You'll also be able to create your own PvP matches if you want.

There was also a bunch of other odds and ins facts we'd like to touch on, which include (but are not limited to): voice acting for key NPC roles; the ability to build your own villages and border kingdoms (which you can live in and have be attacked); a master and apprentice system; Xbox 360 voice chat; the hope for hybrid PC/360 servers; a PC release date scheduled for October 31, 2007; a 360 release for next year; you'll never see the game on the Wii cause it simply isn't powerful enough; computer requirements set along that of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion; 262 people on the screen at any time with a current 130 (hopefully 200 by the time the game ships) on the screen at a time during combat; many of Conan's friends and enemies will appear in the game; no morality system; prostitutes; a possible mount for pre-orders that opens at level 20; and the ability to use the 360 pad for the PC version of the game (though you will suffer cause if playing on the PC you should be using the keyboard and mouse).

If all of that doesn't get you excited for Age of Conan, I haven't a clue what will.