DX10, dungeons in next Conan update

By Oli Welsh Published 18 November, 2008

No rest for the wicked Funcom.

Having got new player-versus-player systems, a crafting overhaul and mid-level zone Ymir's Pass out of the door in the space of a month, Age of Conan's hard-working game director Craig Morrison has set out what players can expect to see next from the troubled Funcom MMO.

According to his latest letter to the community, the next update will feature the long-awaited DirectX 10 version of the game and two new maximum-level dungeons.

The two dungeons will both be located in the Thunder River zone. The Slaughter House Cellar is designed for a single player, while Xibaluku is a "large team instanced dungeon", apparently several hours long with multiple boss encounters.

Morrison didn't mention a release date for the update, but he implies it will arrive on test servers very soon, and the outlook seems good for release before the end of the year.

The next update after that will bring the Tarantia Commons city zone "early in the new year". This mid- to late-70s zone will see players take sides in factional riots in the slums of the Hyborian captial. It had originally been planned to appear before the dungeons, but has been held back for further tuning.

More important than new content to many Conan players is a planned change to the game's itemisation and the way its stats work, intended to make loot more interesting and valuable. Morrison was more cautious here, promising testing soon and release "some time in the new year", alongside a comprehensive overhaul of the game's classes.

"There is a lot to consider in these changes and it will require extensive testing, both internally and externally," he explained. "We want to make sure that it is a positive development for the game, and finds the right balance between the power of items and statistics while still maintaining the pace and compelling nature of our combat system."

Age of Conan launched to great fanfare and brisk sales in May this year, but has had a difficult first six months as players criticised it for unfinished content and systems.

Funcom faces an uphill struggle to win back subscribers, but Morrison's aggressive schedule of substantial updates will certainly help.

Yes we can, Craig. Yes we can.

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 (18) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • viper_h #1 3 years ago

    I would say you can't polish a turd, but Mythbusters proved that to be false.

  • iokthemonkey #2 3 years ago

    Now, now. That's not fair.

    Funcom are delivering one of their launch day features.

    Just 6 months late, is all...

  • Darkjinxter #3 3 years ago

    Having hit lvl 70 at the weekend and seeing off the big Frostfather dungeon in Ymir's Pass I'm looking forward to the new dungeons in Thunder River rather than the DX10 'upgrade' since AoC looks just fine in DX9.

  • Eraysor #4 3 years ago

    I guess Funcom realised it's better to try and salvage scrap than throw it away.

  • Orange #5 3 years ago

    Good point Genbanks, I have slated it in the past after being disappointed by how horribly unfinished and in many places broken the game was on release. However there were some really great ideas in it and if they had been able to take the time to finish it properly and closer to the original design ideas then it would have been fantastic.

    In a years time it may well be very good, although I'm not convinced by all this additional pve content and itemisation. The game should have been more pvp focused and stuck to it.

  • actionfitz #6 3 years ago

    I just cant bring myself to consider this game again.
    Loss of goodwill over the handling of player concerns and their economy with the truth aside.
    The competition just offers too much now to make AoC an exciting prospect.
    If you loathe WoW with every fiber of your being, chances are you will adore Warhammer, any other reasonable player taking this week to come back to wow will be bowled over by the quality of Wotlk.
    Just an opinion, but its mine and I thought i'd share.
    Edited by 1 at 18/11/08 @ 13:54

  • iokthemonkey #7 3 years ago

    AoC has simply pissed-off too many people, myself included.

    Secondly, aside from TEH BOOBEHS and the "innovative" combat system, AoC brought nothing new to the table. There are so many other games out there that are better than AoC, so why would anybody waste their time with it when they could be playing LOTRO, AOC, WAR, CoH or the countless other better games you could be playing?

    Thirdly, for all its claims of being "next generation" it's a retrogressive step in MMOs. Horrible instancing, terrible "hard" zone-walls, unengaging narrative and a difficulty curve that punishes anybody tempted to try and play it. Put simply, it's not fun and is about as next-gen as EverQuest in terms of its design philosophy.

    And finally, Funcom themselves pissed off too many people with their "marketing" and smug attitude of "No, WE'RE right, you're wrong." The new peeps can apologise all they like to try and woo people back. Me, I'd settle for a refund of my subs and the 50 quid I shelled out for this pile of crap and maybe then we'll... Well, actually even with that, I'd still not touch AoC again, as I've got much better things to do with my time.

    Anyway, cue Thor Torgensen my personal troll now who will now provide some "unbiased" links to how great the game is, as supplied by the half-dozen people who've bothered to post on the official forums...
    Edited by 1 at 18/11/08 @ 14:17

  • thebaron #8 3 years ago

    got the special edition and played for about 3 weeks and couldn't put up with the very poor graphics - on my Dell XPS1730 with dual 8800GTX graphics it performed so badly it was unplayable - I tried lots of different driver upgrades and gave up in the end . LOTR and Warhammer both run perfectly as does Crysis and Stalker. So have special edition and 3 months sub wasting away.

  • 1simen1 #9 3 years ago

    Well Monkeyboy, or mister i played the game until level 35 and and quit before all major improvements to the game. Hence i consider myself an ahourity on AOC and how it plays now several months after i quit........

    1 : Stability fixed for the most part in september. (out of memory leaks)
    2 : PVP system added in october.
    3 : Ymirs pass added early november.
    4 : All these big patches also brougth a ton of bug and quest fixes. Including revamping of many dungeons and as i understand it making sieges work as intended.

    The question you the readers might want to ask the monkeyboy is this : Why is it that a person that claims he has been working as a professional gamedesigner for the last 15 years would take it upon him as a personal mission to write how turd/ shite like AOC is in every news story presented by Eurogamer about the game?

    Because he bougth a game he obviously ended up not likeing after subscribing for for a month or two?

    Or could it be that he is a rabid fanboy of another MMO and fear what the "turd" might become when the polish start to shine?

    The question for any player that have played AOC and quit should be this : Did you like the core game when you tried it? If it was bugs, broken quests and crashes to desktop that ruined your fun.
    Would you have really enjoyed the game if those problems had been resolved?

    If you liked the core game but found it unfinished and lacking in content, would try it again if these flaws had been fixed?
    If you can asnswer yes to one or both of the last two questions, you should give it a go once more.

    If you didn't like the combat or other gameplay elements, well the answer is : NO play a game to your likeing you will not like AOC even in a polished state.

    If you chose to live in the past you might miss out on a good thing. AOC should be judged as it stands today, not as it was before all the good stuff was added, and more as you can read in this news story, is on the way:-)

    And no, Monkeyboy i am not Thor Torgersen. I am a 35 year old gamer tired of internett trolls like yourself.

    I said it and i meant it, as long as you keep dissing the game you stoped playing along time ago, i will keep providing a different opinion, just for the hell of it.

    Here is another thread from the official forums created by a player that play the game and like it!! (not like me that never played it or you that played it a little :

    [link url= http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=174610
    ]http://fo rums.ageofconan.com/showthread....[/link]

    And a more balanced one showing likes and dislikes of the new Zone Ymirs Pass :

    [link url= http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=174425
    ]http://fo rums.ageofconan.com/showthread....[/link]

    Morale is: listen to the ones playing the game, not monkeyboy who only played a little or me that didn't play at all ...:-)

    Edited by 1 at 18/11/08 @ 20:41

  • Slabbathepave #10 3 years ago

    The whole experience was lacking. I have never been so disapointed in a game. I had high hopes for AoC and instead what we got was a directionless mess...it didnt know itself what it was meant to be...it had some great ideas and i for one was very impressed with the combat mechanics butthe rest of it was such an unprepared shambles that i couldnt stomach it after two weeks at lvl 80.

    I couldnt justify giving Funcom anymore money. The list of this games wrongs could go on for quite some time and i hope other devs will look at the (justifiably) bad reaction AoC got from the community and make a mental note to never shit in a box and flog it ever again.

    My feelings towards FC and the way they dealt with the whole fiasco are forever poo pooed.

    I'll give it a year...by then the game they should have launched will be there and i might take a look.

  • iokthemonkey #11 3 years ago

    See?

  • Roxette #12 3 years ago

    I play MMO games since 7 or 8 years right now. I played most of them like WoW, GW, Lotro, Warhammer online, Second Life, CoH/CoV etc. I must say that Conan is one of the best I ever saw. There is hardly a game that compete with it. Many people talk about crashes in this game, especially in the beginning. I started playing this game from the launchdate and I must say that I had not even 10 crashes in total till now.
    I use a Dell 1730m xps with 8800m gtx sli. This thing runs Conan easily with about 50fps in 1680x1050 with all in high.
    If I must give points to Conan I sure would give it an 8. And things are improving very fast in Conan.

    Greetz

  • iokthemonkey #13 3 years ago

    I play MMO games since 7 or 8 years right now. I played most of them like WoW, GW, Lotro, Warhammer online, Second Life, CoH/CoV etc. I must say that Conan is one of the best I ever saw. There is hardly a game that compete with it. Many people talk about crashes in this game, especially in the beginning. I started playing this game from the launchdate and I must say that I had not even 10 crashes in total till now.
    I use a Dell 1730m xps with 8800m gtx sli. This thing runs Conan easily with about 50fps in 1680x1050 with all in high.
    If I must give points to Conan I sure would give it an 8. And things are improving very fast in Conan.

    Greetz

    -----

    How's the weather in Norway? ;)

  • Roxette #14 3 years ago

    Well, I have no clue what the weather in Norway is.....I have never been there in all my life.

  • 1simen1 #15 3 years ago

    You see Roxette, Monkeyboy is living under the impression that any person that has something good to say about AOC is a crasy norwegian working for FUNCOM.....

    Basically if you don't share his tastes you must be stupid and full og "shite".

    Quite sad actually. When he grows up he might become wiser though. I'ts never to late ;-)

  • iokthemonkey #16 3 years ago

    Monkeyboy is probably just the same loonatic that MMORPG IP banned like 3-4 weeks back. A guy with like +30 posting profiles, had this insane campaign going on against Funcom.

    ----

    No, just a disgruntled former customer of Funcom who had his fingers burnt by their BS.

  • levitate #17 3 years ago

    Ban someone for his opinions? Either you're putting up a bad attempt of joking or you're a lunatic.

  • iokthemonkey #18 3 years ago

    Ban someone for his opinions? Either you're putting up a bad attempt of joking or you're a lunatic.

    ---

    Nah, all that happens is when people are incapable of countering an argument, they call for it to be silenced. For some reason, there are a few posters here who don't seem able to comprehend that they're in the minority when it comes to believing AoC is a good game and even go as far as to deny that those of us who played it and thought it crap actually did so. Or - even better - that one poster (in this case, me) has a number of sock accounts and think I'm trying to fabricate the level of bad feeling this game has engendered in the MMO community as a whole.

    The simple fact is, a LOT of people were burned by Funcom and AoC. There's no NEED to fabricate posting accounts or reports of ill-feeling when the game was so badly received by the majority of people who played it.