Age of Conan Rise of the Godslayer Expansion

Funcom came out with some big news a few days ago as they announced the official name of the upcoming Age of Conan expansion: the Rise of the Godslayer. I think it's a pretty cool and fitting name, seeing how you had to defeat the Grim Grey God for your destiny quest - and perhaps there will be more gods to slay, too!

Like I mentioned in my old Age of Conan expansion teaser post, Rise of the Godslayer will introduce a new area to the game: the oriental Khitai. Funcom's Craig Morrisson promises huge and beautiful Asian-themed areas to explore, a new playable race Khitan, tiger mounts, faction wars and perhaps most importantly - an alternate advancement system.

This AoC expansion will not introduce more levels or classes (which is pretty unusual for an MMORPG) but we'll get some sort of time-based skill training system much like the one EVE Online has. You will be able to train in various new abilities, learning them over time even while your character is offline. The aim of this, according to the Game Director of AoC, is more depth to combat and allowing each class to take on more roles. Will my Demonologist be able to dish out melee dmg now, I wonder?

Eurogamer has a nice 3-page early preview of the Rise of the Godslayer, and IGN came out with their own shorter AoC: RotG preview yesterday, so check these out for more info.

Birds Eye View of the Tarantia Commons

GamerDNA have posted a new exclusive screenshot of the Old Tarantia Commons area that's coming to Age of Conan in the 1.05 update. It shows the most of this area nicely from a bird's eye camera perspective. See it below or head to GamerDNA for a full quality screenshot.

We've seen how rich people live in the Old Tarantia with the merchants, temples, civic buildings, the villas in the Noble District, and even the palace of the King Conan himself. Now we get to see the Tarantia Commons where poor folk get to stay, a sort of ghetto in the Old Tarantia with street fights, gang wars and even a leper colony.

Tarantia Commons will be a lvl70+ area instead of the previously intended 40+, which I think is a great move since leveling in AoC is quite fast. Expect Tarantia Commons to be added to the Hyborian Adventures really soon.

Funcom Q1 2009 Financial Report

Funcom have released their official Q1 2009 financial report for their investors and anyone interested in the company. You can go ahead and download the .pdf file here.

I was quite pleased to learn that Funcom were in profit this quarter, with Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) and Earnings After Tax (EAT) being 2.898 and 1.468 million USD, respectively. Plus their revenues were around $7.7 million. Overall this goes a long way to prove the naysayers wrong who we almost ready to declare Funcom going bankrupt next year.

The report contains some information on Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, mostly outlining recent improvements to the game and the resulting increase in customer loyalty and activity. We also have this AoC roadmap for the next 6 months:

And I think all Funcom fans will be interested in how the development of their new MMORPG, The Secret World is going. From what I hear it was a big hit on GDC this year, and the sweet-looking teaser trailer has got a lot of attention from gamers. According to the report, The Secret World will be using the same DreamWorld engine that Anarchy Online and Age of Conan is, will be released both for PC and Xbox 360 (wonder how that is going to work), and there currently are over 100 people working on it - versus the 120 working on Age of Conan.

Letter from the Game Director: Update 1.05

Craig Morrison aka Silirrion has just posted his April 2009 letter to the community on the official Age of Conan forums. It mostly contains information on the upcoming 1.05 update to the Funcom's dark fantasy MMORPG. The update is being tested on AoC's public test servers and Silirrion mentioned a few new, previously unreleased details about it.

First of all, they are planning to give players some additional options for resetting their character feats, either in the form of a retraining price or a free reset, or maybe a combination of both. While I do appreciate that, the second point is much more interesting for those who haven't yet tried all the classes due to the tedious process of repeating the Tortage run and leveling all the way up. You will in fact be able to create a new level 50 character (as long as you already have another character above lvl50):

Next up and I think most interestingly for most of you, there will be a new option for players who already have a character above level fifty. All players with characters above level fifty will now have a one time option to create a new character that starts life at level fifty. This character can be of any class you want to make so you can jump straight into a different class after the update without having to go through the early leveling stages. This will be available to all players from here on in after they reach the milestone of leveling a character to level fifty.

Too bad it's only a one-time option, and I think it's much more aimed at new players who want to try things out. Finally, Craig uses the "top secret" strategy to make us all wonder what else Funcom have in store for us next month:

Lastly, we will be offering something else in relation to these changes during the games anniversary in May, but I’m not allowed to reveal that just yet. So keep your eyes peeled for more information as we get closer to the anniversary.

Visit the General Discussion in the Age of Conan forums to read the letter.

Positive Age of Conan reviews from GDC 2009

It seems that the GDC (Game Developers Conference) 2009 was a big success for Funcom's flagship MMORPG, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Several of the biggest gaming portals reviewed the game, outlined the improvements made by developers, and interviewed Craig Morrison - the man who was able to bring AoC back on track after its bumpy launch.

GameSpot has a short article talking about recent additions and updates to AoC. While it doesn't have any new or exciting information, I suppose coverage by one of the most popular gaming portals means only good things for the game.

IGN Vault has a short chat with Craig Morrison where he talks about future updates, such as improvements to the RPG system and new areas.

Massively and ZAM both have lengthy and pretty interesting interviews with the Game Director of Age of Conan. Speaking of interviews, there's also one in video form made by MMORPG.com. You can watch it from the official source, or on YouTube below. It is mostly about the changes that Craig Morrison and the team made to the game after he was appointed as the Game Director. It also touches the subject of free trials.

Craig Morrison Video Interview @ GDC 2009 by MMORPG.com

Finally, EuroGamer has an interesting article titled "Conan's Second Coming" where Rob Fahey plays his character from level 37 to 70 and describes his impressions. Free trials are also mentioned (if you haven't tried AoC yet, you can do so for free here!).