Age of Conan launches on the 17th/20th/23rd May (depending on pre-order and territory). Here is some info about it from my beta experience and general info.
It has a very story based feel - the quest dialogues are more like those in KOTOR with different replies available, although these mainly add flavour. There aren't a huge amount of quests which I felt was a problem with LOTRO. There is a main 'destiny' quest line which you will need to supplement with side quests, or grinding if you prefer, to meet the level requirements. I'm reading through the original stories and they often bring my thoughts back to the game so it's very well done.
Combat revolves around combos - activate a skill then hit the correct direction keys within a quite forgiving timeframe to fire off the skill. There are also some instant cast skills and spells. Melee skills use stamina as does running.
There's full collision detection and weapon reach is important so you have to manouver around mobs sometimes, you can even hit unshielded areas of them for more damage.
Healers get involved in the combat too and it's not possible to keep people at full health. Instead you apply heals over time with a couple of emergency use skills. My healer is more like a healer/nuker hybrid but there is a healer/melee hybrid too. All classes should be able to solo from 1-80.
Every character can stealth although there are penalties for the non-rogue classes. Rogues can also perform stealth attacks: critical hits from stealth which can do a lot of damage if you hit an unshielded area, like their back. Stealth is dependent on light levels so gameplay can actually change at night and in dungeons.
Equipment doesn't give a massive bonus like WoW. Crafting and harvesting are quite simple and do work similarly to WoW/LOTRO though. One cool feature that was recently explained about was the gem socketing system. Only crafted items will have sockets, much like Diablo, and putting different gems in them will give different bonuses. The Gemcutting profession processes gems so there's some craft class interdependency. Gems will drop from mobs and uber gems will drop from raid bosses. I think this is a great way of rewarding raiding yet keeping crafting useful.
There are outposts! Two different kinds: Player cities which are built using harvested resources and cannot be attacked. Kind of a guild hall that you have to build and can upgrade. There was talk about these getting attacked by NPCs but the devs have gone quiet on that one.
Citadels are similar to Ryzom outposts. They are fought over by guilds in sieges who can invite friends to help up to a certain population cap. There will be siege weaponry and already there is one (pre-order) mount that is useful in attacking citadel walls.
The player cap should keep fights fair once it is reached. Also, the defending guild gets to pick attack times within a reasonable window. So no 3am attacks. If multiple guilds want to attack in the same slot then it goes to the one with the most pvp points that have been won in pvp minigames such as capture the flag, deathmatch. Love them or hate them, they add something different to do. Levels are equalised for the minigames, not sure about equipment.
There are no factions. There are 3 races and 12 classes although each class feels like a hybrid of a couple of 'standard' mmo classes and can be further customised with feats, aka WoW talents.
The setting is dark/low fantasy in a brutal world. It's the first MMO with a mature rating so you will often see bodies on spikes, piles of corpses, severed limbs etc. Occasionally you will perform a fatality move (or have one performed on you) which is a particularly bloody finisher that gives a short buff. There is topless nudity and most outfits are the standard skimpy MMO type.
The graphics are of course amazing as it's a next gen title. I'd say somewhere between LOTRO and Vanguard. The world is zoned and instanced (when there are too many players in a zone) though but it is hoped that instance caps will be raised and zones merged as the engine is refined post-launch. Zone size in the starter areas still seem pretty big, perhaps something like one of the larger Ryzom regions.
There are PVE and PVP servers - the PVP outposts and minigames are available on both, it's just that most of the game world is FFA PVP on the PVP servers. Controversially the official roleplay servers will be PVP only. EU copies of the game cannot play on US servers but if you can buy a US copy then Funcom won't stop you.
Personally I feel it has taken the best features of Ryzom, WoW and Vanguard and I've preordered. Hope to see you there!
http://community.ageofconan.com/