Conan: Exiles Part I-Reviewed on Xbox One (NSFW)
- DORK KNIGHT 86
- Oct 19, 2018
- 8 min read
Conan: Exiles is a game I was intrigued by from its inception. But when the title first came to early access in 2017, I was skeptical. I began looking up videos, searching Reddit, and soon I was pretty damn excited to jump into Funcom's adult-oriented crafting/survival sandbox.
Having been a fan of the original film Conan: The Barbarian, I felt a game that embodied the aesthetic and tone of the film would be a great deal of fun if handled properly.
Conan: Exiles begins with a simple enough premise.
You are an exile, an outcast in the desolate world of the barren lands. In the game's opening cutscene, you are freed from crucifixion by Conan himself, who wryly says that it might have been more merciful to leave you on the cross. He tells you that he's sure your paths will cross again, and then disappears into a swirling sandstorm.
Prior to the cutscene, you may notice that your character (male or female) is topless. In the US, however, you cannot change the server settings to full nudity. Or can you?
Turns out all you need to do is download the free DLC pack. Just navigate to the settings on your Xbox One, change the region to UK, then restart the console and go to the microsoft store.
(Click the link below to access the DLC)
You should be able to start the download. Once completed, change your region back to US and again restart. You can now adjust your server/gameplay nudity setting from partial to full. Voila! Now you have the full game the way Funcom intended, with everybody's fun bits swinging about freely.
Here is an example of what you can expect:
1. Climb
Climb up any surface, like a nearby rockface, by jumping at the rock and pressing A again.
2. Drink
Near to where you start there is a waterskin. Pick it up and use it from your action bar to drink.
3. Eat
Use your action button on a bush a few times and you'll collect some insects. They're edible.
4. Use a bed or bedroll
Make a Fiber Bedroll or Rawhide Bedroll then place it on the ground.
5. Clothe yourself
Use your action button on a bunch of bushes to harvest Plant Fiber. You can craft this in your inventory to make a Coarse Tunic, Handwraps, Leggings & Footwraps.
These are just a few of the first steps your character will need to take to survive in the wastes. The directives will become increasingly more complicated and rewarding over time.
Once you have clothed your avatar, you will want to find water fast. If you grabbed the waterskin at the beginning of the game, this step is made much easier. Along the way, you can harvest from plants, branches and stone littering your path.
You can eat handfuls of insects that you find in bushes on your way to the river, as your will almost assuredly be starving by this point. (Soon you will be hunting game and butchering it for cooking)
You will make your way to the more lush part of the map, and after crafting a stone axe and pickaxe, you can begin harvesting stone and wood. It is here that most new players begin building their first base.
The wildlife in this area is not as dangerous, you won't have to really worry about temperature, and basic crafting supplies are plentiful.
You will spend some time leveling up as you learn to craft and build. You likely won't begin to explore the outer reaches of the map for some time as a new player, though experienced players on a new server often choose to journey to a spot near a more dangerous area for their first build. The reason being closer proximity to precious materials, as well as durable thralls. (Thralls are slaves, but we'll get into that more a bit later)
You will need to erect a shelter soon, as sandstorms are frequent in this part of the world, and will kill you quickly without adequate protection.
I've spent the majority of my time playing PVE, (Player Vs Environment) as I do not want to spend a shitload of time building and storing materials just to have some jerkoff destroy my base and steal all my shit while I'm offline.
PVP (Player Vs Player) servers encourage trolls and assholes to prey on unsuspecting players. The premise of PVP is great, but needs to be fleshed out a bit better for it to feel fair.
PVE-C (Player Vs Enviroment/Conflict) is a fun way to play. It is the same as PVE (no PVP building destruction) but offers players the chance to kill each other and also contend with the purge, which is described as such:
"The Purge are enemy NPCs that will be sent into the Exiled Lands from neighboring nations to raid, pillage and destroy everything in their path. Players will have to band together to stop this menace or hide and pray to whatever god that might be listening that The Purge will pass them by. If you do decide to risk it the rewards might be worth it, but you should definitely take the time to build up your defenses."
A quick addendum to that from the devs:
"Where you establish your base will determine what sort of NPC enemies arrive during the Purge: above, you can see frost giants lumbering out of the snowy mountains to attack a player base, and if you build in the lowland swamps you may find yourself being swarmed by angry gorillas.
The difficulty of the Purge also depends on how close you build to the most valuable resources on the map. So, building close to a valuable resource may give you an advantage over other player clans on the server, but the Purges you experience will be more challenging. Purges will happen both on PvP and PvE servers, and their frequency can be determined by the server admins. They can also be entirely disabled by the server owner, or scheduled to take place at certain times or days, such as on the weekends when the most players will be available to deal with them.
-Just because your meter is full you're not guaranteed to get a Purge. The Purge selects a clan at random from the database, but there are a lot of "old" clans in the server databases. We're figuring out a way to remove old clans and improve how the Purge selects targets."
I recommend that new players begin with PVE.
You will choose which god you worship at the character creation screen, though this can be modified later as well. You can manifest most of these gods in physical form, and can use them to attack your enemies.
Each deity has their own specific characteristics and most offer a bonus, though not all.
CROM
The "God who requires no worship." - Crom watches the world from his mountain top, but does not answer prayers and will receive no worship. If you choose Crom as your god at the start of the game, you will not get the knowledge of an acolyte, so he is the god to choose if you do not wish to get involved in the religion system in Conan Exiles.
DERKETO
The "Goddess of fertility, death, and lust." - Derketo, the Goddess of lust, death and fertility, who is the Whore of Set, and the Sable Queen.
MITRA
The "God of right and justice." - Mitra, chosen god of the Hyborians, purports to be a god of right and justice, but his zealous followers are consumed with expanding his religion at the detriment of all others. Mitra’s followers are given the ability to create sacred Statues, Clothing, Healing Consumables and Weapons – including the sacred symbol of the Phoenix.
SET
The "God of serpents and sacrifice." - Set, the Old Serpent, glories in the ritual sacrifice of humans atop his bloody altars. Set’s followers are granted powers that align with their god, protection from Poison and the ability to turn Snakes into Arrows.
YMIR
The "God of snow, storm, and war." - The Nordheim worship Ymir, the Frost Giant, Lord of Storm and War, who lives (according to legend), in Valhalla, his castle far in northern Vanaheim. According to Nordheimr shamans, the souls of warriors who fall in battle go to Valhalla to feast and fight forever. This belief makes Nordheimr warriors terribly fierce in battle, and they often fight with no regard for their own safety.
YOG
The "God of cannibals." - Yog, the Lord of Empty Abodes, demands that his followers consume flesh that has been ritually purified. This means the flesh of other humans, and in return, Yog grants his followers blessed Weapons and Armor.
Devotion and sacrifice will endear the deity to you, and if PVP or PVE-C, you will be able to use it against your enemies.
Once you have constructed a base and begun to get a feel for things, the journey step to build a wheel of pain should appear. You will need thralls to survive in PVE-C and PVP, so gear up with some bindings and a truncheon. It's time to bonk some unsuspecting NPCs over the head and drag them back to your place for a bit of good old fashioned torture.
Higher level thralls can be found toward the north, and also the eastern shores of the map. A good location to frequent is Buccaneer Bay, the pirate encampment on the east shore.
You will want to explore the map as much as possible, though you can certainly reference the map I hyperlinked above to assist in finding your way. You can find emotes, dances, new conversation pieces and much more by exploring.
A couple days ago, someone I had previously reached out to via Xbox Live regarding her awesome builds (Truly Jokester) invited me to join her clan. She has been showing me the ropes and really knows her stuff. (Doesn't hurt that she is admin, either)
Check out her Xbox DVR clips and screenshots by clicking here.
After playing for about a month with my brother (CEASExTOxEXIST) and not running into anyone else, I began to tire of a lack of social contact in-game. Luckily, Truly Jokester's clan is VERY active on the server, they are experienced players, and most important, nice people. They actively clean up old/decayed buildings,monitor new player activity very closely, and have each other's backs in a purge. (Just be careful taking off your pants around Truly Jokester-she will sparta kick your ass off the nearest plateau)
PVE-C This is the type of experience I was looking for. An active server with people who are as invested as I am.
When I first joined, I was amazed my the size of the settlement my new clan had built. In addition to Truly Jokester's castle and animal pens, several other players had sizable, impressive structures they'd erected, full of decorum and creativity.
The result felt like a lived-in city, bustling with thralls and animals.
Oh yes, animals.
The new pets update is great. You can pick up baby animals and take them to a taming cage to begin raising them. With this update, all thralls besides station assigned thralls will require food to survive. This includes pets. The new system allows you to put a food bowl or box down, and your thralls will help themselves as their hunger dictates. Once they run out of food, you will have a week before they die of starvation.
This should help with the excess of abandoned thralls left floating where player structures used to be.
Truly Jokester and the rest of our clan began mulling over a location change. Once we had been given the clothing needed to survive such a trip, we journeyed to the far north and found a snowy new build site.
So began my first lesson in how to build a real base.
I cut down trees and gathered rocks, carrying them back to the build site as our veteran members built a sprawling castle from the ground up.
After a day of nonstop building, our new fortress took shape and we began moving in. The purge meter had been slowly filling over time, and we are working to make our base secure, but it is still mostly tier 1 materials, and tier 3 is needed to defend yourself against the enemies from the north.
There is a special Halloween event coming up. Click here to read the official statement from Funcom.
Thanks for sticking around. This concludes the first part of my Conan: Exiles review in progress. Stay tuned for part II here soon.
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