Yes, there really are a number of level 80’s in AoC now. I think this thread from 5/22 might be the first mention of an actual level 80.
Unfortunately, there are broken mechanics in the game (some have been fixed now) that allowed players to kill much faster than they should. Demonologist, Tempest of Set and Priest of Mitra all had ridiculous DPS at one point. The PoM has been nerfed. The Tempest apparently still has broken skills. Read on for information about the Demonologist.
The first 80 on Cimmeria server was a Demonologist who used a broken mechanic in the game to bug his damage where he was doing instant kills to any monster that hit him. Look at this post from the official forums where someone reported the exploit to the GM’s. He backs it up with a screenshot, a movie and quotes from developers. From looking at the movie, it appears to be made by this Demonologist and says he leveled from 50 to 80 in 24 hours. Here is the player himself talking about his level 80. He exploited to point out that this exploit exists, so it would get fixed sooner. He said he already emailed GM’s with all the details about this bug and other bugs he discovered.
He took 4 days, 12 hours ingame to reach level 80. He says that he thinks he can do 4 day, 3 hours ingame without using any exploits.
There are definitely people in the 70’s who aren’t Demonologists, ToS or PoM’s. There probably are level 80’s who didn’t use exploits or broken mechanics, but their accomplishments are being overshadowed. It has been over a week of live gameplay for early access players. That is plenty of time for the truly hardcore to quest and grind their way to level 80. I hope they think it was worth the effort because they rushed through all the content that Funcom spent 5 years to build.
[...] and a sign of our complete lack of anything better to do. Apparently, the problem lied in the player’s ability to stack certain spells repeatedly and insta-kill mobs. The first person to claim this feat reportedly posted screenshots, a movie and several emails to [...]
[...] 28, 2008 by ferv0r Word spread quickly over the past week about leveling exploits and the existence of level 80’s in Age of Conan less than 10 days after the first players gained access. Tobold addressed this [...]
I found your entry from Tobold’s MMORPG Blog. The phenom of MMO “first!” fascinates me. I haven’t played AoC yet, but I play City of Heroes regularly, and whenever a new Archetype is introduced, it may be only a day or two before you spot level 40s or 50s (the max) of that AT on the servers.
I completely agree with your statement of racing through the content but these days in CoH, there isn’t much of a benefit to being at max level, no special content, no elite gear, so I can’t figure it out except the “prestige” of being there first. Which in CoH means your next step is starting a new character at level 1, so was the rush really worth it?
All it does, in my experience, is make the devs start rebalancing everything to slow people down, which causes an outcry from those that were just trying to play the game and found their progress halted. Anyway, great blog. If I start playing AoC, I’ll definitely be a regular reader.