Age of Conan, like any MMO, has its fans and its haters. Even its fans still find plenty to criticize, and even the haters tend to admit that it does some things really well. When fans and critics collide, one of the questions that's almost always thrown at the fans is 'Okay, you love it now, but what level are you?' The clear message is that the early game can give such a good impression of AoC that it distorts what the overall game is really like. We might get a little tired of Tortage after the third or fourth run-through, but it's still arguably the game at its best - which is presumably why it's the first bit you see.

So why is it that Tortage works so well? What's different about that setup that vanishes after level 20 or so?

One obvious factor is the voice acting. Age of Conan features some of the best voice acting in any MMO to date, and it can be a shock to finally get off Tortage and find all your quest-givers are suddenly silent. A level of immersion that was there before is gone, and it's odd how much you can miss that kind of thing. The quality of dialog writing, as we've investigated in the past, is also extremely high.