Like the title says the open beta of Age of Conan starts May 1st. To get in just register for Fileplanet and be there ready to click quickly at 9am Eastern Standard Time on May 1st. You can pre-load the client before this time, but only if you get one of the 50,000 subscriptions available will you be able to participate in the event.

Funcom says the following regarding the beta "Funcom would like to point out that the primary function of the Open Beta is to stress test Age of Conan prior to launch. This means that Funcom will not make the entire game available to the Open Beta testers, and a level 13 cap will be applied. The Beta experience will still give hours and hours of entertainment, and complete class and culture variety, while at the same time giving Funcom the needed focus for an Open Beta."

It's pretty lame that you can only get to level 13. From what I know about the game it's completely solo up until level 20 so this means there is absolutely no PVP in the beta at all! The cool thing is that it does give you a chance to play with the character creator. Slidebars are available to change the character's features on a continuous scale. This literally means on a server with thousands of players you will be virtually unique and able to be identified through completely visual means just like in the real world. The beta will give me a valuable opportunity to figure out exactly how I want my character to look, then when the real game comes out I won't have to waste a second before jumping in and racing as fast as I can to level out of the crowded starting zones.

A lot remains to be seen about Age of Conan. I think it has the potential to be the next MMO to really hit on the perfect combination, politics + risk in PVP. If there are real resources to fight over and guilds going at each others throats to control them years of World of Warcraft banality can finally be forgotten.