Age of Conan at Leipzig GC

Funcom were at Leipzig GC this year, talking about the launch of Age of Conan, and the improvements that they have made to the game since launch.

The overwhelming feeling that came from the presentations was that Funcom have listened to the players, and have made a lot of much needed improvements. We reviewed Age of Conan shortly after launch, and noted that it was a game with a lot of potential, but a lack of content, and some issues with the PVP system.

Several Game Improvements

Funcom talked about some of the changes they have made recently, including revamping mid-level dungeons to give people in the level 30-50 range more interesting content. The revamped Black Castle dungeon has traps, puzzles that require co-operation between players to solve, and improved boss battles that require strategy rather than just brute force.

There's also a new zone for high level players - Ymir's pass. This zone has lots of content that fans of the Robert E. Howard stories will appreciate, including the infamous Frost Giant's Daughter. The developers are broadening the universe, however, and have included the Wheel of Pain as a tip of the hat to the Conan films. The developers joked that players could 'grind' on the wheel as a way of leveling - I'd love to see them put that feature in for real on the PVP servers, and watch players fight eachother for a turn at the wheel.

Keiara, the poster girl for Age of Conan, plays a role in some quests in Ymir's pass. I was pleased to see that her dialogue sections are voiced, and there's actually been quite a lot of new voice acting added to the game.

There's also a new 'social dungeon' called the House of Crom, which is so big that several groups can be running through the dungeon independantly of each other. I think this is a great addition - instancing is wonderful for when you can't be bothered with dealing with other players, but sometimes it's nice to know that there are other people experiencing the areas at the same time you are.

Another piece of good news is improved itemization - at launch, there was only a very limited range of loot drops, and gear was pretty boring - they're re-vamping a lot of areas now to make loot more desirable.

PVP Consequences System

Funcom also outlined the changes they are planning to the PVP system. At the moment, PVP is just something that is 'there', there are no consequences for killing people, and there is no penalty for death. The developers are planning a PVP consequences system where someone who kills a player much lower level than them will be flagged as a criminal. This flag will wear off over time, but if someone persists in killing lower level characters they will be labelled as a murderer. Murderers are outcasts in society, other players will be discouraged from grouping with, or trading with them, as this will label them as criminals too.

Being a criminal will limit your movements - you will be kill on sight to guards, so will have to either avoid main cities, or sneak around using back entrances, and the climbing skill, to try to navigate cities without being seen. There will, of course, be ways for players to re-earn the right to live as a normal member of society.

Erling Comments On The Launch

After the presentation, I spoke to Erling Ellingsen from Funcom, to ask them about how they thought the launch had went. Apparently, they shipped 1 million units of the game, and have 400,000 active users. They were very impressed with the success of the game, and think that for the most part, the launch went well - the game servers were always up when they were supposed to be, and only came down for scheduled downtime. He admitted that there were some billing issues, and said that Funcom are making every effort to fix these problems, but overall, the team were very happy with how the launch had went.

PVP keeps were one of the things that impressed me most as a player. At the time of our review, keeps were not working correctly, and when I asked Erling about them, he clarified that they were fixed quite quickly, and that now the plans are to make the seige part of the game more accessible, and more important.

In terms of ongoing content, we were told that there are plans to include content from the original books, as well as the films and the comic book series. There is enough content to allow for regular updates for many, many years.

DirectX 10 in Age of Conan

There was a presentation showing the DirectX 10 client, photography was not allowed, but I can say that once they got to the before and after pictures, you can most certainly see a big difference. Water looks gorgeous - the developers said that they wanted to add water based content to give people a reason to explore underwater, and I can see why. Even existing areas such as the dockland area of Tortage look much nicer in DirectX 10, with new particle effects making the place look much more alive and realistic.

DirectX 10 was originally something they wanted to have out at launch, but they delayed it to improve the performance of the DirectX 9 client. If you happen to be one of the people who played during open beta, but decided not to play at launch because of poor performance, try to get a buddy key from someone - you should find the game runs MUCH better now.

If your system is a very high end DirectX 9 one, then you will be pleased to read that many of the DirectX 10 features will be available to you as options in the DirectX 9 client - there will be some DirectX 10 only features, however, but if you don't want to make the jump just yet, you won't miss out on all of the eye candy.

Conclusion

To conclude, it looks like Funcom aren't sitting on their laurels - they had a hugely successful launch, but they accepted that there were things that could be improved, and they have already fixed a lot of the main complaints that players had around the launch, with more fixes and improvements to come. I think Conan the game is maturing into something as special as Conan the hero.