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Age of Conan: Unchained News - Rise of the Godslayer Expansion
Posted by Michael Bitton on Aug 18, 2009 | 27 comments in our forums
The new Age of Conan expansion, entitled "Rise of the Godslayer" has been announced at GamesCom, and the folks at IGN were able to get some face-time with Funcom's Craig Morrison for a bit of a Q&A on Conan's first expansion.
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The Q&A reveals to us that Rise of the Godslayer will feature the Empire of Khitai, which is based on ancient Chinese and Korean culture and history, and a new playable race the Khitains.
The lands of Khitai will be split up into five large zones, with each zone containing a number of dungeons and instances. The storyline of the expansion culminates in a tier 4 raid in the Khitai zone of Paikang.
The new zones will also focus heavily on faction-based content, with players having to take a side in the various conflicts. Doing quests for one faction will lower your standing with its opposing faction, so player choice is more permanent. Of course, there will be myriad rewards for your loyalty, ranging anywhere from ranks and titles, to special items, including faction specific armor tiers.
The zones of Khitai will also be far more open and less linear than what most Conan players are used to with the game's current offerings. This was a conscious decision made due to feedback from players. Craig Morrison explains more:
IGN: How will the new expansion benefit from the lessons you've learned in creating and maintaining the original game? What types of changes are you making in Khitai now that you've seen how players respond to the existing content you've given them?
Craig Morrison: I think there are a few things we are doing a little differently this time around. The playfield regions for example now have a lot more explorable space, the travelling experience is not as linear as many players felt it was in the original playfield regions, we have made a conscious effort to open things up and allow exploration.
Also the playfields are linked, in that once a player is in Khitai there are not travel NPCs to take them from region to region, or a door, here they will actually 'zone' from area to the next and be able to see the geography of the upcoming region before they enter it, so all the playfield regions are stitched together and moving from one to the other is much more fluent experience.
The expansion will not feature any new classes, or a raise in the level cap, but will utilize an "alternate advancement" system which will allow players to earn points towards accessing new abilities through entirely new feat trees.
Two new mounts will be introduced with the expansion as well, the tiger, and the wolf. There is a key difference though, these new mounts won't be purchased at vendors, but instead they will require more of the player in order to acquire them. In the case of the tiger, the player must join a special cult and go into the wilderness to slay a tigress unarmored and unarmed. He then must captured the tiger cub and raise it on his own, first as his pet, training it in all manner of things. Once the tiger is of appropriate age and size, the player will be able to create a saddle for it and use it as a mount.
No release date has been announced for Rise of the Godslayer, but stay tuned, we'll let you know when we do!
For the full Q&A with Craig Morrison, head on over to IGN. You can also view the debut trailer for the expansion, which is available here.
Whoa, sounds like a pretty cool expansion.
Lol... are you serious. Is this the "expansion" ?
No new classes - no lvls - few "big" zones (acording to EE I guess).
And the price ? ???
50$ + ? lol
Sounds pretty much like what other MMOs are offering now as part of the subscritpion patches.
Milking money .... Milking money....
This is so far the best sign that AOC is over.
And let me add this...
THe game is STILL JUST ONE STARTING AREA = TORAGE.... OMG dont they ever learn ????
Wow! Sounds awesome!! :D I love the fact they are adding alternative advancement rather than raising the level cap, and they are adding more depth to both the combat, and the general game itself with the story and the decisions you make with your characters. Opening the world up to create a more fluid, open game world is also a smart decision. I am a little disappointed that there won't be a new starting zone, as I think that would help round the game out a little bit more but I also understand why they don't. That would break the new player community apart between 2 areas.
Sounds a very novel way of acquiring a mount, a little more thought and depth to the whole process, something that should be brought into more games rather than making it a factional grind or an ultra rare drop from a boss mob.
That's actually pretty cool.
Sorry, but no new classes, no new levels, no new races...that's one pretty lame expansion if you ask me. What they ARE offering just sounds like free content that should come in regular installments.
"and a new playable race the Khitains." as you seemed to have missed that
It's interesting that I see players complain about same old same old in mmo's yet it seems that what players want is same old same old.
They are adding an alternate advancement system so tnere is no need for new classes. As far a races? Why does there always have to be a new race added? It's as if players just want their game to be junked up with "everything but the kitchen sink" type of thinking.
Sort of when players were clamoring for more races in LOTRO. I mean, the game is pretty much about humans, dwarves, hobbits and Elves.
There is no rule that an expanson has to add new races or classes every time. That's just ridiculous. Though as was pointed out, there is a new race, so "alternate advancement and new race". So that's good!
adding signifianct amounts of content, new lands, alternate advancement, new pet, etc. This is good (if they can do it well of course).
AOC with no new starting zone is just ridiculous. There are hundreds of thousands of ppl out there that absolutly HATE Tortage (torture) cause they have played it 10-20 times and its always the god dam same. If there was something that AOC needed to focus on was to create 2-3 new starting areas with LOADS of options for the STARTING players. Cause belive you me.... they will not be getting the 100000s of ppl that were fooled buying AOC in the first place - to buy an expansion pack .... just to see if they like the new content....
"and a new playable race the Khitains." as you seemed to have missed that
Ugh, I stand corrected. Sorry about that. *blushes*
Tortage is acclaimed to be a very good starting zone. And in the IGN interview Craig said there will be some small changes there as well. But I don´t think you care, never seen you mention anything remotely positive about AoC.
Anyway, I´m looking forward to the expansion, hope they will reveal some more info tomorrow at Gamescon.
Sounds like Funcom is addressing the various criticisms-getting rid of their Instacing,a whole new continant with 4,or is it 6, subdivisions ( Vendhya next maybe?)!
Looks like Conan's really coming along. Can't wait.
sounds decent, Hopefully they make the old zones more open and a bit more fluid and who knows, i might even return
i ve played aoc the last three months have taken a break before trying aion next month . this expansion looks fun so i may take a look at it when i get bored with aion at some point . lt sounds like it might fix a lot of end game issues . the lack of factions is something i was nt too keen on . this sounds like it fixes that in part .
I'll give them credit for doing what they do best which is RELEASE games what's in those games is usually the problem when talking about FC I just hope that the problems I hear prevail throughout this game are fixed before they ask folks to fork over more dough for an expansion but considering what they have gotten away with so far I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't
thats normal HAHAHA every next or first expansion has at least A NEW CLASS or PLACE which is based on chinese/korean/japanese style... :)
One sure must be cautious with AoC, but so far it does sound interesting. No need to bash it at this step already. ;)
There is a new race and the landscape looks great. Maybe I give it a shot when it launches.
Eh, it was leaked ages ago, I'm personally just thankful they are basing it more on China and Korea than on Japan, the Khitai from the comic books was complete rubbish.
Ok a lot of this new (promised) content does sound very interesting, particularly (for me) the larger, more organic zones.
But a new race? I mean what's the point? Given that in AoC there's no realm-based PVP, no NPC racial recognition (Stygians seem just as welcome in Conarch village as Cimmerians), and travel between the race-specific post-Tortage starter zones is instant and free, the only real difference between races is the hairstyles and dance emotes. Adding a new one is a lot like adding a new style of loincloth - not much different from all the rest once you've got your armour on, and probably designed to hide a glaring inadequacy.
I really am looking forward to this. I'm very glad they are still focusing on the early levels as well as the later ones.
Impressive!!
Looks nice, will definately check out this game again.
Anyone wanting to download further info and screen including the video can do so at Funcoms FTP site: ftp://ftp.funcom.com/media/Age_Of_Conan_Rise_Of_The_Godslayer/2009-08_GamesCom_Presskit
I like the idea that there are no new levels. Level 80 is enough. Maybe Blizzard can take a lesson from this. ;)
Nice changes, especially alternate advancement in replace of levels, who knows WoW may follow suite in their next x-pac.
Lets see how it pans out upon release...
I would like to point out that Runes of Magic is now throwing out a free content patch - that you can download for FREE. It includes new race (elves) - two new classes - New starting area and new endgame content. All this for free for anyone who wants.
At the same time Funcom is offering .... God knows what cause like most of us know - they are nothing but PR. Only thing that all know is that:
a) very few will buy this expansion
b) Nothing will be added for the newcomers so the trial will be the same.
c) New "race" in form of new look ??? (no racial ability features are in AOC) - Will be added to AOC. That "race" will play exactly the same Torture as all the others before them....
d) And for this Funcom is charging ppl for buying this expansion pack...
Is this a joke or are ppl really this stupid ? I consider quality control of ROM to be THREE times better than what AOC is offering atm - and still Funcom charges 100% more for the box + sub.....
Yes - this is how low ppl will sink...
How about add some real loss to the game, like item, xp or gold and then come contact me