Age of Conan adds four dungeons

By Oli Welsh Published 19 February, 2009

Massive patch day for Funcom's MMO.

Funcom has just served up a weighty patch for players of its MMO Age of Conan. The update notes reveal the addition of four new dungeons to the game, as well as a slew of fixes and improvements to most aspects of the game.

Of the dungeons, three are for max-level players: the Slaughterhouse Cellar is a solo instance, Xibaluku a group dungeon that follows on from it in Thunder River, and wing three of Black Ring Citadel is a new raid. The fourth, Cradle of Decay, is a group instance for players in the middle range, the low 40s.

In addition, there are some class tweaks, considerable changes to all aspects of PVP from minigames to sieges and the Notoriety system, new crafting resources that drop from other players in PVP, and plenty more.

We're particularly please to note that five new essential emotes have been added - adjust, cough, fart, picknose, and sneeze - and that "the emote 'relaxed_lean' should no longer cause the camera to shake slightly".

Plenty more on the Age of Conan gamepage.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Pirotic #1 3 years ago

    it'd be really awkward if all 4 remaining players wanted to do a different one.

    edit: edit to be fair, it's probably a bit more since the servers got merged. Was bloody empty on some servers prior to that mind you.
    Edited by 1 at 19/02/09 @ 14:58

  • DFawkes #2 3 years ago

    I was almost interested, and went to check on their online store. Got an "Error: Page Not Found". Obviously hate the idea of having peoples money, so screw them.

    Still, nice for any MMO to get extra bits. Might want to develop early level stuff though, don't focus on Endgame stuff because it won't win extra subscribers, as I was censored suggesting in that last Livetext interview.

  • iokthemonkey #3 3 years ago

    I think Funcom are in an awkward position though D - their existing playerbase is crying out for more content but there's also a need to revamp the early content to attempt to attract new players.

    Essentially - and yeah, I'll get flamed for this but I don't care - this is because they launched the game massively unfinished and without giving any thought to long-term sustainability.

  • SleepyMagpie #4 3 years ago

    Flogging a dead horse.

  • BigJonno #5 3 years ago

    I was under the impression that the first 20 levels of AoC were awesome, but it died off after that. It sounds like adding mid-high level content is what they needed to do.

  • iokthemonkey #6 3 years ago

    The problem is that they're not so awesome the second or fifth time around, which kind of discourages you from starting new characters or trying out different classes.

  • ZuluHero #7 3 years ago

    Don't be silly, you dont get the complete story of those first 20 level unless you play each of the main four class archtypes... i can't see how you can say that its the same on your 2nd or even 5th playthrough. Unless you always pick the same class?

    Anyway, Tortage is where AoC shines, there's no need to revamp that. What they need do is polish the last 60 levels to that of the first 20...

  • iokthemonkey #8 3 years ago

    Sure there are a few quests tailored for each archetype, but about 80% of the content is shared across all four. And regardless of the tweaks and window-dressing, you're still in the same area for about the first, what, five hours or so?

    Tortage was good, the first couple of times and yeah, it was nice to see the other side of the story, but it became old very quickly.

    And for me personally, I tend to play the same archetypes, as I don't like casters. So I saw the same sequence of quests over and over when all I wanted to do was get on with the game.

  • ZuluHero #9 3 years ago

    But thats surely the same flaw with every game - not just MMOs? I suppose the fact that everyone starts in the same start area is a valid point, but at least Funcom did the best they could and tried to make it interesting and a varied experience for rolling different classes. I have 4 level 21 charas on the AoC servers - and none have gone any further....

  • Slabbathepave #10 3 years ago

    I would like to thank iokthmonkey for not disapointing me.

  • iokthemonkey #11 3 years ago

    It doesn't have to be with a bit of thought though. I've played a lot of MMOs and done re-rolls and re-starts but I never felt as restricted as I did playing AoC. Maybe it was all the cut-scenes and stuff got in the way because - let's face it - once you've seen 'em you just want to get on with it.

    I just found the prospect of starting a new character in AoC incredibly offputting as I really didn't want to sit through all the same cinematics, play the same quests and put on the same brown bloody armour.

  • iokthemonkey #12 3 years ago

    Excuse me for voicing a bit of constructive criticism and raising a point for discussion.

  • sneetch #13 3 years ago

    @iokthemonkey
    Sure there are a few quests tailored for each archetype, but about 80% of the content is shared across all four. And regardless of the tweaks and window-dressing, you're still in the same area for about the first, what, five hours or so?

    One of the main things that put me off AoC was the restrictive nature of the newbie zone: in almost all MMOs that I've played you start off in a newbie zone of some sort but if you want you can go skip it and head elsewhere straight away. In AoC you have to play through the newbie section before you get out into the world and as a result the world seemed smaller and more linear to me. (And with only a single newbie zone the idea of creating alts got real tedious real quick). The lengthy loading finished off any interest for me.

  • iokthemonkey #14 3 years ago

    Exactly.

  • Slabbathepave #15 3 years ago

    I was thanking you. you put a smile on my face. I like that you have a hobby.

  • Benno #16 3 years ago

    oik as a record, sounds more broken than AoC will ever be

    bring back gaol, atleast his rants were well put

  • iokthemonkey #17 3 years ago

    Well, it helps pass the day.

  • iokthemonkey #18 3 years ago

    All we need is for 1semen1 and Roxette to show up now and tell us how great AoC is and the thread will be complete.

  • _LarZen_ #19 3 years ago

    AoC is what it should have been from the start now, the game have taken the right turns these months.

  • iokthemonkey #20 3 years ago

    Do you have a nice beard, LarZen?

  • iokthemonkey #21 3 years ago

    Do YOU have a nice beard, Gen?

    I ask because the AoC Flash ad here shows lots of people with delightful facial hair and I wondered if it was a requirement of play...

  • _LarZen_ #22 3 years ago

    @ iokthemonkey

    Wel let me ask you this, do you have pink hair? Blue skin or look like a cow? You sound like a World of Warcraft kinda guy so im just asking.

  • oerhoert #23 3 years ago

    To call the first 20 "awesome" is a real stretch, in my opinion. I only managed to get to the 9th or something before I cancelled my character, but those first levels were merely "OK", plagued by unnecessarily bad writing, odd characters and simplistic quests.

    I thought it was bearable due to the soothing music, and it had a certain thrill of exploration, but in general, it was a single-player RPG done badly instead of the more streamlined grind of WoW.

    Again, only talking about the first nine levels here.

  • iokthemonkey #24 3 years ago

    Wel let me ask you this, do you have pink hair? Blue skin or look like a cow? You sound like a World of Warcraft kinda guy so im just asking.

    ----

    Nope, I used to play WoW but not any more.

    I asked simply because the AoC ads on Eurogamer show every player of the game with a beard so I wondered if that were true.

  • HMAN #25 3 years ago

    How anyone can still defend AoC is beyond me. Its a steaming pile of monkey turd.
    There you have it, comment section over

  • levitate #26 3 years ago

    I thoght they'd cancel AoC by now.