Ten years ago, no one except the hardcore gamers knew or cared about a young genre, the MMO. Back then it was games like Ultima Online, followed by Asheron's Call and Everquest.

The genre became more popular when World of Warcraft was released. Unfortunately, many reviewers became blinded by WoW, and use it as the standard all games in the genre should be judged by. I do not feel this is the case.

While World of Warcraft may have the largest subscriber base of all MMOs, that doesn't mean that all games released in this genre must copy it. Imagine where FPS games would be if they all copied staples of the genre like Doom. We'd be in a total mess, with no variety in gameplay whatsoever.

This is what the MMO genre has started to become, with everyone releasing their WoW-clone MMO every few months. Few developers are willing to take a chance with something a little more risky, such as a PvP (player vs player) focused MMO.

There have been PvP focused MMOs in the past, Dark Age of Camelot was probably the most popular over time of the PvP focused MMOs. Shadowbane had a good run, and I personally had a lot of fun playing it, but the high-risk scenario wasn't for everyone. A guild would lose the city that took them months to gain in a matter of hours, and accounts would be cancelled one after another.

Now we have Funcom trying their hand at a PvP focused MMO. I've been playing around with it since shortly after launch, and gotten to see quite a bit of what the game has to offer. I have by no means seen the endgame raids on a regular basis, nor have I taken part in large guild sieges. This review is written from the perspective of a mid-level Priest of Mitra on a PvP server. Try to keep in mind that some views stated here will reflect the more PvP focused worlds, of which Age of Conan has many.