Official Website: www.riseofthegodslayer.com/

Trailer Video: www.youtube.com/watch

10 min Q&A video interview with Gamona: www.gamona.de/games/age-of-conan-rise-of-the-godslayer,interview-pc:article,1544179.html  (how parts relate to the lore, inspirations, changes to make play more seamless, new Mounts (and how getting one is different than the norm in other mmo's, no free to play for AoC right now) (German site, English video)

5 Min AoC:RotGS expac play video:  www.clubic.com/actualite-294932-gc-videos-exclusives-commentees.html  (French site, English video - shows traversing across a playfield, shows some type of battle going on inbetween)

1 Min Gametrailers play video: www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-09-age-of-conan/54531

Dynamic Lighting Engine upgrade! coming our for AoC  most likely with Expansion video: ageofconan.juegaenred.com/movies-500.html ( possibly shows somw additional footage from the expansion kinda neat looking dungeon)

IGN Q&A  uk.pc.ign.com/articles/101/1014712p1.html

Eurogamer Preview:  www.eurogamer.net/articles/age-of-conan-rise-of-the-godslayer-preview

ZAM AoC RotGS Interview / Q&A: www.zam.com/story.html

Some interesting points so far:

Rise of the Godslayer, which is based on Robert E. Howard’s “The Tower of the Elephant” introduces a new storyline set in the Empire of Khitai. The Empire of Khitai is being torn apart by warring factions in a conflict set in motion years ago by a young Conan when he killed the Elephant God.

Game Engine update with Dynamic Lighting upgrade.

No release window was revealed, but Funcom stated that the expansion has been in development since the beginning of the year, and it’s currently playable at Gamescom.

Classes that are playable as the Khitan Race have not been decided yet.

Tier 4 raiding will be introduced with AoC:RotGS.

"We're adding things like 'digging spots' for finding buried treasure"

Ten main factions and two hidden ones. There are five gameplay regions, and each gameplay region has two factions in it. In each region, the player has a choice to make. They'll effectively make five choices as they go along, as to which factions they want to ally with. It's not like they make a decision in the first playfield that will bind them to something in the final playfield.

Two of the opposing factions are both Priest factions, for example. One of them worships the god that Conan killed, but they're actually practitioners of very white, nice healing magic—they're very nice guys—but they hate Conan to death. [...] On the other side, you've got these guys who worship the Lord of the Underworld—human sacrifices, they're all for it—but they actually also have the true heir to the empire raised upon them. So joining them is kind of the right thing to do, but...the player doesn't have any easy choice at any point; they have to think about what they're doing.
 

The tiger is the fastest sprinting mount; so you get a quick burst of power, but only for a short amount of time. Plus Stealth ability mounted.

In the lore of Khitai, it's the land of 999,999 gods—so one of the things we've done is design this place where there are these little shrines all over, in every playfield. You'll find them in ruins, you'll find them in half-buried mosques—you'll find these little shrines everywhere. It's actually an optional quest; as you go through, you can go through to each and every one of these shrines, and if you play the right emote, something will happen.

The Expansion playfields would actually be about the same size—in geographical space—as say, Ymir's Pass! But in Ymir's Pass, for example, there are lots of [very large,] mountainous regions, [but there are mostly just] narrow paths which are actually traversable; what we would call 'playable game space.' What we've done with Khitai...it's much more about open and vast plains, valleys and rolling hills. There are still mountains bordering the regions and the players will still go up those kinds of barriers, but we've been able to make much more of the space playable, without making it geographically bigger. It allows us to place more mobs and put more content within the same game space, but with much more explorable space. There is 30 percent more playable space in these playfields, simply by being a little clever about how we approach the wall design itself.
 

Nice find of that vid from the french site. Really enjoyed it as revealed quite a bit on what we can expect in the expansion.

WOW, I'd have to say that is looking sooooooo nice. I just read about the new Tiger mount and the detail is insane. You have to enter some forest unarmed and without your armor, kill the Tigeress with your bare hands, steal one of her young and train it over time, teaching it various skills, eventually leading to a bond between you to so you can ride it. The game is forming bonds with your items, making it feel like your hardwork was work it. That is amazing. This expansion adds depth to gaining a mount, which in other games can be as simple as farming gold. Plus some of the new armor I saw from the trailer looks ace, just really great. Seriously, so far this is looking absoluely amazing.

Originally posted by pleasenjoi93

WOW, I'd have to say that is looking sooooooo nice. I just read about the new Tiger mount and the detail is insane. You have to enter some forest unarmed and without your armor, kill the Tigeress with your bare hands, steal one of her young and train it over time, teaching it various skills, eventually leading to a bond between you to so you can ride it. The game is forming bonds with your items, making it feel like your hardwork was work it. That is amazing. This expansion adds depth to gaining a mount, which in other games can be as simple as farming gold. Plus some of the new armor I saw from the trailer looks ace, just really great. Seriously, so far this is looking absoluely amazing.

Sounds pretty Conan-esq to me! Instead of mount you can opt under additional quest line I believe to have it as a pet who fights along side you instead of you having it as a mount so more options there.

 AoC haters get ready to drop your jaws!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7YDZkmWv4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whWOD...eature=related

That is huge amount of content already made. I think it is safe to say that they will beat Cataclysm and GW2

Keep dreaming, nihce, and stop drinking, it belittles your reason. You know absolutely nothing about Cataclysm, yet claim it will have less content than AoC's expansion. For your information, Cataclysm will contain 4 raid dungeons with numerous optional encounters, 7 dungeons + heroic modes plus two heroic dungeons from the vanilla era. And that is just the endgame pve dungeon part...

Ironically and sadly, the info on the next WoW expansion contains much more concrete and substantial news about the pvp content than the abstract "faction-based" pvp Rise of the Godslayer is supposed to bring.

Yes, Rise of the Godslayer seems to be a nice expansion that AoC badly needs, especially its core philosophy, namely horizontal progression aka more things to do in the game than being bored out of your mind. AoC's expansion will try to add a new core to the game, while WoW's 3rd expansion will improve upon it, since that game long ago achieved what Rise of the Godslayer is trying to achieve.

Oh, and ofc, nihce, you totally and intentionally forgot to ignore the fact that the world will actually CHANGE in the WoW's next expansion, they're not merely adding new zones and leave the old ones in dark.

Originally posted by nihce

 AoC haters get ready to drop your jaws!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7YDZkmWv4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whWOD...eature=related

 

That is huge amount of content already made. I think it is safe to say that they will beat Cataclysm and GW2

Comparing wow's cataclysm with aoc expansion ?.............. Where have I heard wow / aoc comparisons before .. .something about steak.

On a serious note hope the expansion gives the existing player base some more fun in game. Personally I wont be getting it, as its the core game which never worked for me. I'll just wait aronud in wow until they release SW:TOR and hope another promising MMO doesnt get buggered up or released half finished, which seems to be the current trend

Does look quite nice though, so good luck with it when it arrives. =]

 Lol that happens if you write messages @ morning before coffee. Lemme correct myself. What I meant to say is that with the amount of content already made they will probly release expansion before Cataclysm and GW2 hit the stores. 

Even that statement is presumptuous and naive, at best. Given AoC's slow development cycle and the recent rapidity of the Blizz team it is more likely Cat will be released prior to Rise of the Godslayer. At Blizzcon people could already play the new races and try out some of the quests that pertain to the new starting areas. Basically whole Blizzcon this year was devoted at giving out concrete info about the new expansion.

Well, let's hope both expansions come out as soon as possible.

 Well if they manage to not release prior than they deserve to get slaughtered. You do know that FC is working on expansion somewhat half a year already, right?

@ AmazingAvery: I see some screenshot and video of tiger mount but didnt see anything about wolf mount. i think its still under development or ?

Originally posted by nihce

 Well if they manage to not release prior than they deserve to get slaughtered. You do know that FC is working on expansion somewhat half a year already, right?

And you do know that Cataclysm was begun during the development of WotLK, right?

 quote? (you are writting a diploma and still dunno when to quote? :D ) ... you need a source.

Originally posted by Ekadd

@ AmazingAvery: I see some screenshot and video of tiger mount but didnt see anything about wolf mount. i think its still under development or ?

Pretty much, from that ZAM interview:

"Bylos: The tiger is the fastest sprinting mount; so you get a quick burst of power, but only for a short amount of time. The wolf...I'm not going to talk about yet, actually. We're still working on exactly what we want it to do, and we have some ideas that we think players will like—but we're not quite ready to talk about it yet"

There was also this thread here: forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

If I remember right Sharum (dev) is the mount guy, the one who sorted out or had things to do with the "Betsy the Cow" mount ;)  Plus I think in the past he said something like the way the creatures are designed and through some previous testing it is essentially possible to turn anything into a mount with ease in game.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by Ekadd

@ AmazingAvery: I see some screenshot and video of tiger mount but didnt see anything about wolf mount. i think its still under development or ?

 

Pretty much, from that ZAM interview:

"Bylos: The tiger is the fastest sprinting mount; so you get a quick burst of power, but only for a short amount of time. The wolf...I'm not going to talk about yet, actually. We're still working on exactly what we want it to do, and we have some ideas that we think players will like—but we're not quite ready to talk about it yet"

There was also this thread here: forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

If I remember right Sharum (dev) is the mount guy, the one who sorted out or had things to do with the "Betsy the Cow" mount ;)  Plus I think in the past he said something like the way the creatures are designed and through some previous testing it is essentially possible to turn anything into a mount with ease in game.

Thank you..

you know most of the conecpt  art for this expansion date back to 2007 and earlier

Originally posted by Zer078

you know most of the conecpt  art for this expansion date back to 2007 and earlier

I think that this expansion has been in the works for quite awhile at least from a design stand point. The overall design is worked out and posted. I still predict a September release of 2010 that would give them quite a bit of time to run a beta.

Originally posted by catlana

Originally posted by Zer078

you know most of the conecpt  art for this expansion date back to 2007 and earlier

 

I think that this expansion has been in the works for quite awhile at least from a design stand point. The overall design is worked out and posted. I still predict a September release of 2010 that would give them quite a bit of time to run a beta.

Yeah your both right I reckon, Beta for the expansion will come with a few select (first choice for existing testers).

4 zones equal or bigger in size to Ymirs (potentially) with addditional instance dungeons ets for each, maybe another 4 of each plus the T4 raids will take a while.

I think year and half for this from Jan '09 and sooner is a bonus.

---

Originally posted by catlana

---

Originally posted by Zer078

you know most of the conecpt  art for this expansion date back to 2007 and earlier

---

 
I think that this expansion has been in the works for quite awhile at least from a design stand point. The overall design is worked out and posted. I still predict a September release of 2010 that would give them quite a bit of time to run a beta.

---

Isnt Sept 2010 roughly the release date for SW:TOR?
Lauching the AOC expansion against the SW:TOR release would be a very big mistake.
However, if they wait too long then they may even run to close to TSW release and FC would never let that happen. Sounds like TSW is their new Golden Child and AOC is their Red-Headed Step Child.
I would have to say they will need to shoot for around March, April or May. Releasing during the summer months is very stupid and if they wait until Sept then they will most likely go up against a few newly developed MMOs. However, unless the work done on the AOC expansion is well progressed(which I doubt) they may decide to release the expansion too early and get nailed for a partially developed expansion.

This is starting to look like a small mission pack rather than an expansion.

Compared to EQ, EQ2, WoW, and Guild wars there is no discussion about dungeans and raids or PvP just this open world to explore.

News flash expansions based on level capped players are all about end game stuff!

Originally posted by finaticd

This is starting to look like a small mission pack rather than an expansion.

Compared to EQ, EQ2, WoW, and Guild wars there is no discussion about dungeans and raids or PvP just this open world to explore.

News flash expansions based on level capped players are all about end game stuff!

congrats on your 350th post on why you still hate aoc and why it sucks and why no one should play it!

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by catlana

Originally posted by Zer078

you know most of the conecpt  art for this expansion date back to 2007 and earlier

 

I think that this expansion has been in the works for quite awhile at least from a design stand point. The overall design is worked out and posted. I still predict a September release of 2010 that would give them quite a bit of time to run a beta.

 

Yeah your both right I reckon, Beta for the expansion will come with a few select (first choice for existing testers).

4 zones equal or bigger in size to Ymirs (potentially) with addditional instance dungeons ets for each, maybe another 4 of each plus the T4 raids will take a while.

I think year and half for this from Jan '09 and sooner is a bonus.

wow that big? 4 zones that size would be nice .still finding hiden stuff in game now but ymirs impressed me how big the zone felt an diverse terrain .

Originally posted by eureka105

Originally posted by Axeion

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

wow that big? 4 zones that size would be nice .still finding hiden stuff in game now but ymirs impressed me how big the zone felt an diverse terrain .

 

Who cares about zone size? If they make it big, there will be less details. And with small 50-60 player instances, big zones just feel more empty.

When do Funcom understand that most players don't want new lame zones? We want more things to do, like drunken brawling, pvp arena.. things like that.

Plenty of vids on youtube showing off a coupel area's which already look well populated with things to do. We both know you lie when you say 50-60ppl instances so leave the crap out.

You don't want things to do but you don't want more zones where there are things to do? did I say that right?

So you want a PvP focus? So what is happening with 1.06 is majorly a PvP focus if you look at what is being said. But suffice to say when the patch notes go up and there is all that focus there I have a feeling it just won't be good enough for you.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by eureka105

Originally posted by Axeion

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

wow that big? 4 zones that size would be nice .still finding hiden stuff in game now but ymirs impressed me how big the zone felt an diverse terrain .

 

Who cares about zone size? If they make it big, there will be less details. And with small 50-60 player instances, big zones just feel more empty.

When do Funcom understand that most players don't want new lame zones? We want more things to do, like drunken brawling, pvp arena.. things like that.

 

Plenty of vids on youtube showing off a coupel area's which already look well populated with things to do. We both know you lie when you say 50-60ppl instances so leave the crap out.

You don't want things to do but you don't want more zones where there are things to do? did I say that right?

So you want a PvP focus? So what is happening with 1.06 is majorly a PvP focus if you look at what is being said. But suffice to say when the patch notes go up and there is all that focus there I have a feeling it just won't be good enough for you.

Actually zones to explore as they say probably wont have much to do at all aside from more quests and places to grind advancement points. However the expansion is made for level cap so they don't need to do quest and only one place seems to appeal to level cappers in MMOs for grinding:

In reality, AoC would need plenty of grouping places perhaps at least 8 grouping instances/dungeans, and maybe 2-3 raid zones.

Hell they could link all that to one zone with portals and players would be happy.

Then they could work on fixing the release PvP stuff and maybe adding another mode like small group arenas, perhaps 3 players.

I know that at release with multiple instances going in big zones the game felt empty and now that populations are much lower per server big zones may backfire.

The more I think about this expansion, the more underwhelmed I am by it.  I'm sure I'll have cancelled long before this expansion hits retail, and I really can't see this enticing any players that have quit to come back.

Not raising the level cap might be a good thing, but no new classes?  Who's going to buy an expansion just for new zones when your characters are all already level capped?  How many copies would Turbine have sold of Mines of Moria if they didn't raise the level cap and add 2 new classes?  Tiger and wolf mounts are just LOL.  I guess I'll have to wait and see for more details to find out more about this alternative advancement.