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.
