Funcom has distributed this press release outlining future plans for their MMORPG Age of Conan. MMORPG.com will follow this story and provide more details as available.

Durham, USA – June 13, 2008 – After the incredible initial success for Age of Conan, a whole world of MMO players are eagerly anticipating the future plans for one of the most popular online games ever released. While Age of Conan has already evolved massively since launch, numerous expansive additions are yet to come. Funcom and Eidos are therefore proud to lift the veil on Age of Conan’s promising future, and today the two companies reveal selected features which are now in production.

“While we have enjoyed the initial success for Age of Conan, we know that a solid launch is but the start when it comes to the MMO genre,” said Gaute Godager, Game Director on Age of Conan. ”As we look ahead we are preparing a huge amount of new content, and what we are presenting today will evolve Age of Conan even further. It’s naturally an incredibly ambitious update plan for a live MMO game, but we are certain our players would want nothing less.”

Without further ado, here are some of the cool things to expect in the months to come:

PvP evolved – To the Death
The great combat system in Age of Conan has taken MMO fighting to a new level of fun, and Player versus Player combat plays a major part in this. As a result, a massive new PvP update is planned for late June. Aptly called To the death, this update brings more consequence and rewards to PvP, and an important part of it is the Fugitive system. The more lower level players you kill, the easier it is for others to hunt you down. In addition, ten PvP levels with additional ranks will be introduced, as well as specific gear and weapons for PvP.

Guild Alliance Warfare
Preproduction has started on a MASSIVE free update which will come later this year. Currently titled “Kingship!”, large clusters of guilds will be able to form alliances, and rule and conquer on a massive scale. Everyone in a guild alliance will play a part in this system, and together they can even erect unique looking alliance Battlekeeps. The alliances can also fight over, and build, culture-specific “wonders of the world”, with a direct link to higher powers! As part of the system Funcom will also facilitate larger amounts of players in massive battles.

Powerpoints
This fall, a unique reward and character evolution system called Powerpoints will be introduced. This rewards active in-game behavior, and allows for gathering points through numerous methods, including owning a Battlekeep, playing the end-game at level 80, winning PvP matches, or simply being an active guild member or subscribing to the game. There will be many ways to obtain Powerpoints, and numerous rewards, ranging from exclusive Powerfeats to weapons, armor and potions. Powerpoints may even allow you to level faster!

New areas and dungeons
You won’t need to wait for an expansion pack to explore exciting new areas. In the next period, Funcom will include several new areas, as well as evolving already existing areas. This includes a brand new dungeon in Aquilonia, reshaping three dungeons in Stygia, and an entire mountain range in Cimmeria!

Improved player-made villages and Battlekeep systems
While the guild alliance system brings a whole new level to the game, Funcom will continue to expand the existing player-made areas and the systems running them. A focus on evolving the massive elements of the game even further continues, ranging from placing NPC’s in the cities to more choices and benefits.

Social updates
An MMO is nothing without a good social scene. While Conan is all about crushing your enemies, social enhancements are also getting some love. A fun example is the combo-based dancing system which is now coming to the game, and it’s entirely motion captured by professional dance artists.

More adventures
Age of Conan has received tremendous praise for immersion and the great voice-over quests. This is but the start of the adventure, and numerous new quests are coming into the game, spread across the entire world and across the level ranges. Soon 60 additional quests will also get full voice acting, further improving immersion.

Embracing community feedback
Since launch several enhancements and fixes have been implemented to Age of Conan, and Funcom has continuously staffed up the service departments to improve customer satisfaction. This has already resulted in a better game experience, but the work will continue. At the heart of all of this stands the Age of Conan community. A lot of the upcoming improvements to the game will be based directly on community feedback, and the wishes and concerns players have when it comes to the future of the game will always be taken into account.

By reading the community websites, official forums and the monthly Clan of Conan newsletter you can expect additional information about upcoming features and released updates, as well as an arena to give your feedback. A new Clan of Conan newsletter is also going live today, with more detail on the upcoming features. http://funcom.cachefly.net/WebFiles/Newsletter/Issue17/

More on Conan here.

The #1 complaint from players is overinstancing yet nothing about removing it. Embrace that.

My only complaint is not instancing the Cistern/ Sewers. That place is too cramped !

i.e. wait 6 months and we might have something for you to do after level 50...

It is a very fun game at times, but it needs about a year of maturation to be considered a good game.  Hopefully Funcom will solve all the major problems that the playerbase is concerned with. 

The sad thing is I have doubts about their ability to improve their woefull customer service, let's hope they surprise me and make some strides in that area.

Originally posted by RedwoodSap

The #1 complaint from players is overinstancing yet nothing about removing it. Embrace that.

How would you go about fixing it?  From what I saw, the instances are so small that they needed to make multiple copies just to support the population.  Crappy design?  Yup.  But I don't see a way to fix it at this point.   Maybe in the future they can make bigger zones or something, but at this point they're looking at redesigning the game to fix it.

Don't get me wrong... I made it to lvl 45 in about 2 weeks and called it quits.  They pissed me off by releasing the framework of a game, not an actual game.  I'll check it out when they get things in order, maybe. 

Originally posted by fansede

My only complaint is not instancing the Cistern/ Sewers. That place is too cramped !

 

i 2nd that one. how is other quest specific dungeons instanced while this one is wide open with no room to be open like this. i dont see how this dungeon isnt instanced yet sanctum is

Maybe it's bugged, like the Armsman's Arena was until the recent patch.

Lot's of endgame stuff then. I'm taking my time, not quite lvl 50 yet and in no rush so hopefully this will be done just in time for me

Originally posted by Ozmodan

i.e. wait 6 months and we might have something for you to do after level 50...

It is a very fun game at times, but it needs about a year of maturation to be considered a good game.  Hopefully Funcom will solve all the major problems that the playerbase is concerned with. 

The sad thing is I have doubts about their ability to improve their woefull customer service, let's hope they surprise me and make some strides in that area.

There's still 'way too many in game issues with AoC (I won't list them all here, but any knowledgeable MMO hobbyist can delinate them).

As I've stated before, I played a lot of AoC, but am holding off purchasing the game.  I refuse to pay FunCom $50 and $15 a month to beta test/debug their game after release.

“While we have enjoyed the initial success for Age of Conan, we know that a solid launch is but the start when it comes to the MMO genre,”

What is this guy smoking?

I want some!

the launch was far from solid, they may have sold a shit load of boxes that does not mean they had a solid launch.

Originally posted by Dento

“While we have enjoyed the initial success for Age of Conan, we know that a solid launch is but the start when it comes to the MMO genre,”

 

What is this guy smoking?

I want some!

the launch was far from solid, they may have sold a shit load of boxes that does not mean they had a solid launch.

 

But aside from that, the other issues *surrounding* the launch were, at best, unexpected by FunCom and, at worst, al most totally ignored.  I lean a lot to the latter, since, even now with this very positive release (OP), FunCom refuses to acknowledge, much less address the incredible high number of dick-steppings they've done with this game so far.

Originally posted by Dento

“While we have enjoyed the initial success for Age of Conan, we know that a solid launch is but the start when it comes to the MMO genre,”

 

What is this guy smoking?

I want some!

the launch was far from solid, they may have sold a shit load of boxes that does not mean they had a solid launch.

 

For me the launch was incredibly smooth. I had no lag, servers were up when I played, and did not run into any game breaking bugs. I can't comment on lack of end game content, but any mmo player is foolish to believe a brand new mmo will have decent end game right out the gate. I never look forward to end game, I actually really hate end game because once I hit cap level and stay there for a month I usually quit no matter what mmo it is.

It may have been smooth for you once you got it but there were thousands and thousands of people who couldn't get in and days later when the preorder boxes didn't ship there were and are  people that did not have their keys to keep their preorder accounts active and could not get back in game until they receive the box.

It may have been smooth for some but for many it was not.

Originally posted by Dento

It may have been smooth for you once you got it but there were thousands and thousands of people who couldn't get in and days later when the preorder boxes didn't ship there were and are  people that did not have their keys to keep their preorder accounts active and could not get back in game until they receive the box.

It may have been smooth for some but for many it was not.

 

 

It's quite obvious you can't expect something to work perfectly for 400k people. It happens everywhere. It might seem to you, that the launch was a fail, because you probably  just sat there and watched the forums...people who enjoy the game, are playing it, people that hate the game/are having isssues are writting on the forum.

OVERALL it was really smooth, compared to other mmo launches.

You think funcom would say that the launch was smooth just like that, because they want more to come? If the launch was a total failure, they would say something like "The launch was quite rough, but we will do better in the future"

It might have been rough for you/your friends, but for at LEAST 300k other people, it was quite smooth.

I did not encounter any problems, neither did my brother.

Loved the launch, loving the game, looking forward to the End Game PvP. So far Funcom has done everything right. This coming from an Old School UO Player who really didn't dig WoW.

All I can say is... Anarchy Online Part Two

AoC sucks now, but 2-3 years down the road, when everythings implemented, fixed and balanced, the server populations will be so small, that even 6-12 months of free play won't get veterans to come back.

Just wait and see, it's going to be Anarchy Online all over again.

I enjoyed it, Im done now. Might try it when they put the bulk of the game in (what they are talking about here). About 4 days played and I have experienced the 'content' (which is fun) there really isn't anything after that. I do think there marketing is deceitful  but thats another story. I also think there are some architectural issues with the game which will impede what they hope to deliver but thats another story too.

There are the usual naysayers here. For powerplayers, there will never be enough for them in any game. I'm not even level 40 because I'm taking my time to enjoy what there is in the game. Perfect? No. Fun? Yes. Conan largely aimed for PvP play, a part I don't enjoy unless it's RvR. When I've milked the game for all the enjoyment I can find, I will move on. It's the nature of online games. 

From what I saw from beta through retail, players really don't know how to set their options for the best gameplay. Some posters in the forums try to help them, but they are either ignored or misunderstood because players are used to having their hands held through other games. Many players came from WoW, and that's all the experience they have with online games. Well, that and the no-brainer Korean games.

An ambitious game like Age of Conan, with advanced graphic aims, is bound to have it's problems. Patient players will be rewarded.

Originally posted by Dento

“While we have enjoyed the initial success for Age of Conan, we know that a solid launch is but the start when it comes to the MMO genre,”

 

What is this guy smoking?

I want some!

the launch was far from solid, they may have sold a shit load of boxes that does not mean they had a solid launch.

 

Ya makes you wonder how many boxes they would have sold if they would have told everybody what was still missing from the game unstead of hiding under the pretext of not wanting to spoil the surprize for people
 

Biggest bunch of liers and scammers ive ever seen

lol at ppl that still belive one word Funcom is saying...

Was a beta tester and playing the game since release, taking it slowly.

Started in a PVP RP  server and it was simply a gankfest.  Made another char fresh on a PVE server and loving it, hoping to get PvP  bits  in the end game or even in arenas.

The thing is......    PVP  is so far a gankers paradise  -  i really dont see the upcoming changes doing much diference in the future,   if youre not ganked by a char 40 levels above you, you will be ganked by  3-4  assassins / range types that prefer to outnumber instead of taking it  1 vs 1.

The ranger types or spellcasting types will, as usual, have the uperhand in uncontrolled PVP  -  a thing that i hoped would not happen in AOC, but it's already there.

Regarding Guild-Warfare, fortresses are being build -  period.  No warfare at all so far and the landscapes that support Guild Homes  are booooooooring as hell.

The ones that made it already to 80, i wonder what is their opinion of the game, since from 50 and up  you actually have to grind a lot to level up due to lack of content and quests.

Will the 80s today wait for a more polished game or more content?   They already are at 80 and to see the 50-80   new quest lines  they would have to start all over again.

Speaking of starting fresh........    after playing 2-3  chars   you really start getting tired of  Tortage   -   boring as hell after the second time you complete it.

Maybe 2 more months delay for the release would be better, as it is right now....   if you're a fast-forward player that wants to achieve level 80 and end content as soon as possible,  you will be disapointed.

Other than that, it's perhaps the most beautiful mmorpg i ever played. Graphics and atmosphere are unique and realistic. I dont mind the zoning, its not that frequent (yes, a former EQ/EQ2 player).

The fact that they used the zone system to make better looking and unique zones is lame though,  WOW didnt need that and neither LOTR and we all know how unique a map is from the previous in those games.

The music score is the best that ever existed - i noticed LARGE influences of Conan the Barbarian movie and even the 13th Warrior  -  just listen to old Tarantia score, its almost a twin brother of the part where Conan and Subotai went from town to town.   Anyway, the score is great, with original pieces strong enough to keep me humming them all day long (a thing that never happened to me before with a game).

All in all, a good game, the one and only im playing atm, the combat system is refreshing and with that arcade feeling that is missing in all other morpgs out there. If you take your time to enjoy the ride, you will love it, if you're in a rush you might get bored afterwards.