Aoc game director Gaute Godager gives a new interview over at ing. He talks about the development of the game, game play, and the schedule.

The key graffs I really liked talked about, of course, the darkness of it.

"Conan will be the very first brutal, hands-on action oriented massively multiplayer online RPG. The game was, and still is following this distinct vision - trying to become the embodiment of the savage, unforgiving Hyborian Age"

Talking about siege pvp he says, "In essence, it is like PvP raid content. " Hells yea.

And finally, he talks about ranged fighting and how it will depend on player skill, and not just button mashing:

"Using the latter camera mode gives the player the ability to fire their bows at longer ranges, although this naturally requires more player skill - which is the fun part."

I take this to mean that unlike other MMO, you don't just go to max range and hit "Shoot bow", but the farther away you are, the harder it is to actually hit the target. This sounds great.

Read the whole thing at ing

One of the things that is so interesting about AoC is the depth they go to stay gritty. Take AoC's tank, The Dark Templar.
From the AoC site:

"...the Dark Templar will go as far as to trade his very humanity to any dark being who will offer him a piece of the corrupted power that they possess."

That is some pretty evil shit. It kind of makes World of Warcrafts shadow priest look like a cartoon. The official site continues, "...the Dark Templar is also quite a sadist."

There is more information about the Dark Templar at Ten Ton Hammer

From that interview it seems like AoC is at least attempting to balance the need for a tank with a tanks desire to do damage. Jørgen Tharaldsen, Product Director for Funcom says "The Dark Templar can also remove his shield, and instead focus on holding magical talismans in the offhand, which will give him additional combat effects like bonus damage or procs" and "we have a mode in the game called Frenzy, and a Dark Templar going into this mode can deal around 150% extra damage, [but you take] three times the damage if someone hits you."

Sounds sweet. Ten Ton Hammer will have a class review every two weeks, stay tuned for more.

The hook for me about Age of Conan is that it seems to be a lot about technology.

World of Warcraft is about time sink and grinding. Now, I'm sure there will be some of that in AOC, but based on what little beta I have seen it is going to be more technoligists vs primatives.

What I mean by that is, the people with metal swords vs the people with wood clubs. As I mentioned before, this looks to be a serious departure from the old grind it out style.

I look forward to it.