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Age of Conan: Unchained Previews: PAX Rise of the Godslayer Demo
Carolyn Koh was at PAX. While there, she met up with Funcom's Craig Morrison to talk about the upcoming Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer.
By Carolyn Koh on September 11, 2009
The Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer is based in the land of Khitai. A land imagined by Robert E. Howard the creator of Conan the Cimmerian as an exotic land of 9,999 gods, a rich, influential land in the Far East. Funcom has interpreted that as a land, peoples and architecture reminiscent of Ancient China and influenced by a romantic, folkloric European view of Chinese culture. Khitai is a land that Conan visited as a young thief, seeking a gem of fable. Instead, he found an alien being of power which had been bound by the wizards to do their bidding, and worshipped as a God by the faction. Out of mercy, he killed it as it begged him, and in turn, Conan earned the enmity of a powerful sect.
"Rise of the Godslayer is very much a story driven expansion," said Craig Morrison, Executive Producer of Conan at Funcom. "Players have to make choices and every choice has consequences."
The trailer we viewed showed vast lands, adventure in the shadow of the Great Wall, different factions and exceptionally detailed armor and architecture. Funcom drew their inspiration from the cities and cultures of Ancient China and Korea for the look and stories of this expansion and it does look marvelous. Craig was pleased to talk about the optimization of their games and graphics engine, and the improvements they have made since launch. "The zones are stitched together in Khitai," he said. "Now you can look behind you and see the play fields you've left."
There will not be a new class or levels introduced in Rise of the Godslayer, but an alternate advancement system which introduces a new set of feats above the regular feats. These new feat tree abilities are advanced by feat points which are earned in game play like XP is. At this time though, they have not nailed down exactly how these new points will be accrued and applied, if it will be a common pool that players can adjust to control the ratio of xp gained into leveling or into feat points.
;)
The land of Khitai is vast. There are a total of five play field regions and each region boasts 10 main factions and two hidden factions. Each of the major factions will have sets of armor players can earn, and no, they do not all get along. Players will have to make a choice, although these choices are not irreversible and betrayal quests will be available. The expansion also introduces two new mounts: Tigers and Wolves. These mounts will have be earned and are the long term goals of the expansion. The quests promise to be epic in nature. For example, to obtain the tiger mount, players first have to discover where the Tamarind Tigers are located, gain enough faction with them to begin the quest, then to complete the quest, they have to wrest a cub bare handed from it's mother, learn to care for it; feed it, train it, and in time, teach it to kill. Finally, players will have to decide whether to make it a mount, or to keep it as a combat pet. That decision cannot be undone.
To obtain a wolf mount, players will have to do a similar quest that is just as involved, and both the Tiger and Wolf mount can be attained, as the factions are not in the same area. The faction system, Craig tells us, is very much tied into the story telling. The first faction a player comes across will be the nomads who have a nice set of armor all waiting to be won by players. Will players make nice with them and then move on? There are some betrayal quests that will be available, but players will expect that there will be some uncomfortable times. When they have turned irrevocably from one faction but have not yet been accepted by another.
"Don't just waltz into town if you've been killing scouts and guards out in the field," warned Craig. "The garrison won't like it, nor will the citizens."
Craig provided more examples of factions that players will choose to align with or not. "The Priest faction hates your king," he said. "To them he is the God slayer. Will you turn your back on Conan?" Further, there is a faction who has the valid heir to the throne of Khitai. Unfortunately, they are not very nice people. In fact, they are a downright mean and nasty lot. Will you support them?
We were shown the armor of the main factions, which are obtainable by players. The silhouettes are distinctive and recognizable and these are the factions that players can decide to align with. Since they don't all play well together, the silhouettes help players identify the NPC factions they want to avoid.
Looks like AOC is on the right track....But the community the last time I played (wiccanna PVE) was just terrible. It's sad that M for mature dosen't mean what it should.
Sounds great to me!
It was depressing to walk by the Funcom booth at PaX. The only people there were the employees. I sure hope this MMO gets back on track and makes it.
Well after pre-ordering and paying the extra five dollars for the head start so I could make my characters (roleplay) name as soon as the server came up. Then all the game problems which I was willing to come back to once fixed only to find out that my being on a transfer to server still made me lose my names, I say screw them.
I just don't care what they come out with at this point.
Because...they never had the courage to make it an epic game. The races were...3...and there wasn't even a successful realm vs realm attempt in the game. Sure - laugh at this - but then let me repoint those who debate organized pvp over guild war small time instanced warfare...to the empty booth. Conan slammed his fist in anger in the opener - spoke of epic struggles - not three races fighting the same three races. The way it is now - when you see pvp in this game it looks like the same side killing itself. Other than guild name there's nothing special or different about any one group over another. In AoC, priests of mitra side with tempests of set and kill priests of mitra - necromancers can run free pets out through Cimmeria - this is all just a slap in the face to the cultural and religious divides that made up a great series of books.
Sure there's always that merc group of random betrayers - but in Conan - it's everywhere - there's no great empire vs great empire. Nothing..epic - and subsequently nothing to look at at the Funcom booth.
With the new expansion do you still have to start out in Tortage, or is there a new starting point? The only thing that would bring me bacl to AOC would be the addition of multiple starting points, and more classes.
Well if you bothered to read ..
''There will not be a new class or levels introduced in Rise of the Godslayer.''
Really? If by 'community' you mean the 2 dozen a-holes on Global every evening acting like dicks, thats not really Wiccana's community. I play on Wiccana regularly and it has a wonderful community (if you turn Global off ;).) Its guilds are very active and constructive, the newbie channel is full of people wanting to help new players out. There are regular RP events going on weekly on the server. It's generally one of the most friendly servers in the game.
After the rocky start and my level 80's sitting around with not a damn thing to do in game I just can't bring myself to sit down and play this game again no matter what they bring out. It would take something GROUNDBREAKING for me to give AoC a second chance. I wish AoC a painless death.
I play on Wiccana and the majority of the players are cool. Having said that, my ignore list is filling up at a rate of about 1 chump every 1 or 2 days.
I doubt Funcom would spend millions of dollars marketing something and developing a new expansion if the game was on its last legs.
Sure it isn't the huge succes it could have been. Sure Funcom botched the launch and deserves plenty of flak for some of the stuff that happened, but trust me, business-wise they are not dumb. I am pretty sure they would move all ressources to The Secret World if AoC was dying.
AoC still have a loyal following. And with the mmo landscape and current launches this fall I still see this game has a future. It is one of the best in the whole landscape despite its obvious short comings.
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Seems like from what alot of people said on the official forums that it was busy and there were queues to try out the expansion preview.
Obviously there will be times when the booth would be busy and not so. Just saying.
They also Tweeted for volunteer help. TSW brought a lot of ppl to the booth too.
As for getting back on track, the expansion brings a lot of what people are and have been asking for.
In the interim there is Patch 1.06, focus on PvP objectives and coming is a new larger scale conquest type minigame (capture points) There is lots of additional stuff in the works.
The main thing is, right now I think the came is already on track, there has been some good additions, clearing up the issues before has left the door open to primarily content updates and that is what has and will filter through rather that larger emphasis on fixes.
Such base hate on these forums, it's amazing.
Age of Conan is a fantastic game. I just don't have any friends on it, so there's little I can do.
Eh, no new classes and no level cap raise is in my opinion not a good way to get new people to try the game out or bring old players back to try playing their high level charecters again.
IMHO the WoW formula of 10 new levels and a new (completely balance changing) class and 10 more levels of boring same-old quests is the wrong way to go. I'm glad to see Funcom is being unique and more creative on their expansion. They've always been known for that.
Why should new people who never played the game be attracted by new classes or higher levels if they still need to do 12 classes and 80 levels??
And there is plenty of content for old players in this expansion.
I think it is a brilliant move by Funcom not to increase level cap.
If anything I miss more improvements to pvp mechanics and player housing. But the first is being worked on for sure..
I dont think this expension will be any good becouse they arnt adding any classes or races they are just making a new country
They are adding a whole new race; the Khitai
Wow didnt notice that.
nice mabey it will quite good
Populations are definitely up. I have played most other MMO's and AoC has the best graphics and sound. And the combat systems is by and far the most dynamic. If they figure out a way to add battlegrounds and/or gladiator pits, this game will hold your attention outside of questing.
One good indicator that the population was up - my auction items are selling like stuffed french toast at IHOP.