That new game feel

It has only been out for just over a week, but I doubt I will be playing Age of Conan for while, if at all. Fortunately Funcom offered the early access along with ten days of play before I had to enter my retail key. I still have my per-order box and key, but I have not activated yet. Maybe later.

So why not?

Very simple. I was not sucked in to the game.

I am a very intensive gamer. With most new games, I will spend a good day or two just playing the game. Now being a responsible adult, I put this in my calendar and make sure that for the first 48 hours I am free of other obligations. In fact I go so far as to inform my significant other of these periods of non-availability. Now a days, this happens about twice a year.

So Conan comes out. I was in the Early Access so I had the opportunity to play during the pre-opening weekend. Granted the servers were down for a good portion of that so I did not get to play. Then when I did set aside time, I just did not care to play for more than two or three hours. (If my client stayed up that long)

But for some reason I was just not drawn in to the game. Sure the combat is different and the graphics are nice, but it is already feeling like most other MMOs out there. Right now there is only leveling and some PvP. And since PvP is unfortunately level based, you must level in order to be competitive.

If I am going to play a level based game again, I don't want to think about what I need to do in order to level. I just want to go and "play" the game and let the leveling happen in the background. I still want to level and get more powerful, but I am not always playing the game to level.

For what ever reason I am already worried about how to level quickly and not just playing the game.

For the record, I don't think Warhammer will be any better in this regard. I might find it more interesting since I have more knowledge of the Warhammer universe than Conan. But how long can newer games hide the leveling from me?