We were hungry for blood and headed back to the lobby to sign up for more． Many humbling defeats later we finally managed to kill someone and seemed to be improving． The much touted "real combat" was a double edged sword (apologies for the pun); we had the immediacy of being able to strike an unwitting foe, however if you didn't do bulk damage straight away the veteran players would quickly muster their superior weapons and spells, sicking their demon pets on us．

Funcom has posted the update notes for the most recent expansion for Age of Conan： Hyborean Adventures．

PvP Servers For those who just can't get enough PvP, Age of Conan features PvP-flagged servers, with rules allowing widespread PvP, and PvP-RP servers, which not only allow for lots and lots of PvP, but also feature a robust ruleset encouraging roleplaying and staying in-character．

To make the weekend even more interesting Eidos and Funcom are also including the engaging Age of Conan character creation system, allowing players to create avatars with strong personalities． All 12 classes in the game, including the barbarian, can be picked and tested, with Funcom transforming each character into a fully specced, level 20 death machine． In PvP lobbies players can then chat and socialize, prior to entering PvP matches． Participants are urged to test different classes and offer any feedback on the forums． There will also be forums on GameSpot．com where people can talk about the event, and Funcom staff will be present to gather feedback．

The unique PvP weekend marks an escalation in the stress testing for Age of Conan, and aspiring barbarians can now sign up on GameSpot's website． The 15,000 lucky winners will be then contacted by email on Wednesday the 16th of April, and then they can then start downloading the game． The servers open at 4 p．m． EST Friday the 18th of April and close at 4 p．m． EST on Sunday the 20th of April． Funcom would like to point out that the PvP weekend is still part of the beta testing process, and that it is a part of the planned stress test escalations towards launch． As such, it is not fully representative of the final product, and players are asked to treat it accordingly． Stress traffic issues may occur．

The early version of the game we played already has a working interface that nests most major menus (such as your character's inventory and skills) along the top of the screen, while including a mini-map in the bottom-right corner of the screen and your combat menu at the bottom center of the screen． In the PC version of the game, by default, you use your W, A, S, and D keys to move as you would in a first-person shooter, and you also use your Q, E, and your number keys 1 to 3 to perform melee weapon attacks, which include a forward thrust (the 2 key), overhand diagonal slashes (1 and 3 keys), and horizontal slashes (Q and E); all five buttons are also represented onscreen as labeled icons． When you begin your career, you'll have no real skill in combat, though your enemies will also be weaklings．

Your first quest is given to you by a fellow refugee, who speaks to you in an interactive cinematic sequence complete with camera close-up and branching dialogue options, reminiscent of single-player games like Knights of the Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls IV： Oblivion． As we soon learned from this conversation, another survivor from the slave galley has washed ashore--the head slaver, who has fled to the nearby town and must be slain before he can alert the authorities to your presence． Along our path, we also found a half-naked Stygian woman bound to opposing trees by her wrists--we spoke with the woman in another cinematic dialogue to find that in order to free her, we'd have to forcibly convince a scavenger to part with the key． We readied our splintered oar and went hunting．

We began our tour of the game by quickly creating a new character from the game's character creation screen, which is actually the belly of a slave galley from which your character escapes with a case of amnesia． We quickly created a new Cimmerian character (Cimmeria is the homeland of Conan and one of the nations of origin you can choose for your character, along with Aquilonia and Stygia) and jumped into action． At the beginning of your adventure, your character washes up naked on a beach bordering a jungle, armed only with a fragment of an oar as a weapon．

We ended our tour with a brief visit to an extremely high-level dungeon known as "Black Ring Citadel," a level-80 dungeon (80 will be the highest character level you can attain at the game's launch) intended for the game's full "raid" contingent of up to 24 characters． The dungeon itself seemed to be an elegant temple under construction, alternating between rooms floored with red marble and pillars adorned with golden serpents, on the more developed side, and stony caves being carved out by slave crews． Apparently, the dungeon will be the base of a mad wizard who has discovered the secret of animating stone gargoyles and bending the beasts to his will, so players will be attacked by smaller stony creatures before confronting the sorcerer himself． The sorcerer, when defeated, actually tumbles out of his robes and becomes a gigantic, stony monstrosity．

Our character was once a slave pulling oars on a ship． Said vessel proves to be less than sea worthy and - after a savage storm - is ripped apart leaving us to the whims of the salty sea． Soon we washed up on dry land, on a beach with a lush jungle before us． Quickly arming ourselves, rather ironically, with a broken oar we moved into the jungle． Here we encountered bandits, archers, apes and ugly beasts． Happily most of these creatures were quite easily dispatched, raising our experience level and allowing us to steal clothes - as the loin cloth was just not a good look - armour and items like gold teeth which no doubt would be able to be bartered at a merchant's stall or shop．