Monthly update lays out Age of Conan development roadmap

The year ahead is shaping up to be a busy one for Age of Conan, and Funcom's Craig Morrison lays down a rough foundation for the next few months in his latest monthly development update. If you're looking for the short version, it's this: Now that the Dreamworld deployment is in the books, AoC is continuing to pick up new dev talent and will be adding more content going forward.

In the immediate future, players are getting crowd-control balances, two level-80 group dungeons, and a faction progression revamp, all of which are slated for the next update and currently available on the test server. Following that, we can look forward to The Forgotten City and The Breach, two new solo auto-content generation dungeons designed for levels 40 to 80. There are also a handful of technical improvements, optimizations, and general balancing scheduled to accompany the new content, and of course the much-anticipated Blood and Glory PvP server ruleset is coming sometime this summer.

Finally, Morrison teases fans with a blurb about AoC's late-2011 updates, specifically "two new and important elements incoming." He also hints at some sort of tie-in with the upcoming Conan film reboot. Head to the official AoC boards to see for yourself.

Reader Comments (25)

Almost certain the announcement he was speaking about that hasn't made the cut is Free To Play..it makes sense they are redoing their networks and servers to handle a lot more people. The FC cash and item shop basics are in place and FC is aiming squarely at the disgruntled Non Raider WoW community with better PVP and dungeons you can do with"a" friend or even solo.

This may make AoC a Riches to Rags to Riches story.

@Dunraven

I don't think Free 2 Play and cash store is a profit turn around, more often the not it's a death rattle.I'm amazed by so many players hunting around for a better game, just becareful though or you'll end up in anouther crap game.

@(Unverified)

LOTRO: Increased patch rate, extra servers and more people on each servers.

Now, personally, I wouldn't call it a death rattle.

@Dunraven

Sounds good to me. This year's Conan reboot would be the perfect opportunity to also reboot AoC as a F2P game. "Don't just watch Conan, live in his world too! For free!"

@Dril yeah if anything F2P has been a giant cash cow for Turbine and Cryptic...My server in LOTRO stays packed all the time...hardly a death rattle.

@Dril

I had this debate with Beau here on Massively and I have a theory one why it works for LOTOR and DDO. That because of the entertainment franshise they support. Alot of DDO players, played the original Dungeon and Dragon games, and with LotoR the fan base. I think successful F2P games are living on the the fan nitch, this theory for the NA market. I know in Korea F2P are doing pretty well. Just a theory though.

@wondersmith I just hope to get to see the new movie in the U.K. I have heard it's going to be like it was with the Americans and Soloman Kane...which is sad if true.

@(Unverified)

Well, if the entertainment franchise really makes the difference for F2P conversions, then F2P AoC should be a success. Who hasn't heard of the mighty barbarian warrior Conan? I myself love Tolkien's Middle-Earth, but my heart truly belongs to Howard's Hyborian Age and its shining kingdoms.

@wondersmith

I'm not sure they have that safety net. Conan is early 80s, and doesn't really have the big fan bases like Trekies, Starwars, D&D, etc

Please don't misunderstand I'm not slamming it, but it is a failing game if you look at the number and listen to the mass of players. As this thread points out, some people take it personally when you down their "baby" I want better games, and all the games on the MMO market could improve drastically in areas.

@(Unverified) Just as a heads-up, Conan isn't "early 80s". There is a bigger fan base of the Robert E Howard books/stories from the 30s (and I imagine the later non-Howard Conan books as well). I've never seen any of the Conan movies, yest I'm a big Conan fan. In fact, I don't think the Conan movies added all that many fans.

I have a large group of guildies that had a guild chapter in AoC, it's very interesting to hear their feedback on the game. They have sworn off all Funcom products, due to simply bad management of AoC. I personally have never tried the game, and my guildies however are pretty solid minded players, that enjoy other games without gripe. They cite the slow response to fix major bugs; third party mods, hackers that make the game unplayible, as well as minor bugs. Constant class changes, completely redoing each class in consective patching. Recently the AoC staff annouced development changes, and a need to listen to players, after massive exodus of players leaving AoC after each failure of fixing critcial errors at long awaited patching.

It needs to be question, does the management staff require replacing? FFXIV, followed that road map, however the game is still very broken, and players are still staying away. Sadly with Funcom new title "The Secret World," coming fairly soon, many burned AoC players will boycott the game. My guildies that were intitially interested in the up coming title, sighed, and called "Failcom game, no way." Now as a player that's never tried the product, I hear this type of talk I don't even want try a free trial.

@(Unverified)

As a currently subscribed player ( waiting for sub to expire in a couple months ), I can honestly say "Listen to your guildies."

@(Unverified)

Your guildies are, quite simply, bullshitting, ignorant, irrational bigots without a shred of intelligence between them.

Yes, there are still bugs, and there are problems, but not game-breakingly so. I've never, ever seen a hacker in AoC, and third party mods are, surprisingly, absolutely amazing in AoC. The guild bots that record data and act as organisers are absolutely fantastic, and the actual modifications you can do to the game are cosmetic only.

AoC's losing players because there still isn't much to do other than raids and dungeons, as good as they are, and the fact that actually getting to the point of being able to do raids and dungeons is a massive, lonely, which is a poorly-disguised grind.

It's a good game. It's got oodles of charm and character. But its endgame needs a revamp.

That's about it.

@Dril Unbeknownst to the majority of human beings, it is possible to have a contrary opinion without being an irrational bigot, nor is the irony lost on me when someone makes a gross, uninformed generalization and accuses the other side of bigotry. Bravo.

@(Unverified) Nop, Drill is right perhaps the questioned poster should more often than not try a game without the need to trust word by word what his guildies say.

@(Unverified)

The even bigger irony is that you're calling me ignorant but accusing me of saying exactly the same thing to them.

But well played, sir. I'm sure if you hurry you might be able to find some offensive stand-up and write an angry letter to the company that produces it.

@Dril You will see a revamp in endgame in the form of size of the group required to enter and allowing solofication of many Raids also the dungeons with Randomly generated Mobs and loot will prove to be very popular.

@(Unverified)
By far the worst thing about AoC is uniformed idiots like you talking utter bull5hit about a game they know nothing about.

"hackers that make the game unplayible", "completely redoing each class in consective patching" What a load of balls. Really where are you pulling these kind of dumb comments from? Your 'guildies'?? Are they similar to your 'girlfriend' in that they don't really exist?

And if your defense is 'I never tried it myself' then maybe do a bit of research before you come along repeating other peoples words so you don't end up looking a complete tool.

I can only tell you from hands on experience that this game rocks from a PvE perspective. And the addition of new content and the technology going into this is a huge improvement. The game is improving and the slap downs did happen to improve it.

If this game were to offer an alternate payment model, I'd definitely try it out.

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Monthly update lays out Age of Conan development roadmap

Reader Comments (25)

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 1:20PM Dunraven said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 1:35PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:05PM Dril said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:08PM wondersmith said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:45PM Dunraven said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:45PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:47PM Dunraven said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 5:50PM wondersmith said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 6:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 30th 2011 3:31AM PhelimReagh said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 1:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 1:59PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:10PM Dril said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:44PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 3:00PM paterah said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 3:02PM Dril said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 3:02PM Dunraven said

Posted: Apr 30th 2011 4:54PM Misterlee said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:17PM Lateris said

Posted: Apr 29th 2011 2:44PM (Unverified) said

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