Age of Conan gets new RPG system

By Oli Welsh Published 24 June, 2009

Plus new city slum zone, pets, more.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures receives its Update 5 today, setting the seal on Funcom's complete overhaul of its MMO with a new RPG and itemisation system, as well as adding new high-level content.

Servers were taken offline at midnight and downtime is expected to last 12 hours, as confirmed on the official forums.

Update 5: Gangs of Tarantia adds the Tarantia Commons zone. New quests, instances, bosses, rioting, rooftop action, leper colonies and three-way factional gang warfare all feature in this slum area of Hyboria's capital city.

More significantly perhaps, the game's stats and itemisation system receives a complete rethink, making stats easier to understand, items more powerful, and therefore loot more desirable. This brings Age of Conan closer in line with MMORPG conventions and has been at the top of players' wish-lists since the game was launched just over a year ago. Every character class will also be receiving a major overhaul in the update.

Additionally, Update 5 boosts the ranking benefits of player-versus-player minigames, improves the guild cities, adds social pets, and overhauls the gem crafting system.

You'll also have the option to create one new character at level 50 if you already have a level 50 or higher, an extra character slot if your account is over six months old, and improved guard AI, vendors and travel options.

You can read more in an official preview hosted on MMORPG.com, in which Funcom hints that the next update will please guilds.

After a troubled first six months for Age of Conan, word from the Conan community and our own Rob Fahey is that the game is much improved, but the reception of the changes in Update 5 will be crucial to its future. We'll be looking at them in more detail soon.

Picture of Oli.

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 (17) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • Crembo #1 3 years ago

    Wow. Awesome news! But it's already 12 hours and the servers aren't up yet! Dun dun dun duuun :o

  • videogangs #2 3 years ago

    I resubscribed briefly but found it very hard to get back into. I might try again in the winter when I'm less inclined to go out in the evenings I guess.

  • Dizzy #3 3 years ago

    I think it is time for a short resub ;)

  • Roxette #4 3 years ago

    Yeahhh....finally its coming. We all waited a long time for this.

  • iokthemonkey #5 3 years ago

    NOW WITH FREE HAT.

  • Lemming81 #6 3 years ago

    So the game is finally in the state it should have been at launch?(Or is there still no DX10?)

    You really are an easily forgiving lot EG...

  • Slabbathepave #7 3 years ago

    I sincerely hope AoC turns itself around. I'll be paying close attention to it for the next few weeks with a view to a short re-sub at some point.

  • Hypercube #8 3 years ago

    I can't be bothered to start again in this - I didn't get anywhere near lvl 50 first time round. Kudos to them for sticking with it, and it does look like a lot of Conan fans are now enjoying it, but this ship has sailed for me.

    I'm undergoing an MMO hiatus for a couple of months!

  • dsmx #9 3 years ago

    Might be time for eurogamer to do a re-review of it then

  • Gurgeh #10 3 years ago

    " but the reception of the changes in Update 5 will be crucial to its future."

    No it won't it's DEAD. D-E-A-D.

    MMOs do not get second chances, let alone third or fourth. They might take a long time to die, they may even launch expansions in an attempt to get more customers, but their fate is set practically from the day of launch.

  • comedian #11 3 years ago

    "but their fate is set practically from the day of launch."

    Nothing practically about it, all MMO's will shut down one day, even the mighty WoW.

    Some may just get there quicker than others.

  • johnlenham #12 3 years ago

    Seems they have a seven day trail so might be worth a bash after my account got deleted waaay back over the whole preorder code bonus thing.

  • Miths #13 3 years ago

    Just fired up the game after patching - and wow! (no, not that wow :)) Talk about massive changes to both the effects and menu presentation of character stats, talents (free respec) and items. Everything is just so much more transparant with just about every relevant number presented in a clear and easy to understand fashion, and items stats certainly do seem to have a much bigger and very obvious impact on your character stats now.

    I'm only level 36 on my highest level character though (started playing a couple of months ago but got sidetracked with other things and then jumped in again a few days ago), so this is still just the impression of a noob :).
    And since I won't have time to play properly until later today this is all I've seen so far.

    And to Lemming81 - DX10 was implemented a couple of months ago (right after I started playing actually), but the DX10 client is still considered beta and it does have some issues, the biggest in my opinion being a fairly severe framerate hit even in areas where there are no obvious DX10 effects like much improved lighting and shadows.
    I'm on a quad core system with 8 GB RAM and a GTX 260 and I've been sticking with the DX9 client so far, although I'll probably give the DX10 client another try soon. Some of those extra effects really did look rather lovely.

  • Darkjinxter #14 3 years ago

    1.05 (update 5) is a jolly big update, but not as big as Funcom would have you believe. Character and item stats 'n' tweaks are well 'n' good, but at first glance the stats haven't changed at all, merely been given a new coat of paint.
    Nonetheless AoC's community has improved a lot over the last six months (which of course, has nothing to do with Funcom) and grouping, raiding etc is now a lot of fun.
    DX10, although useable, is still in 'test' mode and will likely stay there forever more.
    There are no free hats on offer.

  • levitate #15 3 years ago

    I'm gonna give the trial a go this weekend.

  • Rubel #16 3 years ago

    Funcom does tend to have an awkward way with the larger patches, so I'm certainly expecting a bit of a shakedown period. I've only had a chance to play for around 20 minutes so far, but it does seem like quite an improvement, and hopefully helps solidify the basis for some really killer content.They always had great production values and fun combat; over time, they got rock-solid client and servers. I hope Update 5's changes are the final bit of polish. Can't wait to get into some PvP and to see the new areas and dungeons.

  • Orange #17 3 years ago

    So they've WOW-ed it up. There goes any chance of me resubbing. If i wanted to play an item focussed game with pvp minigames might as well just play WOW.

    Conan had such promise, shame they rushed it out and now resorting to dumbing it down to try and keep people in it.
    Edited by 1 at 25/06/09 @ 23:04