Forever Conan

Leipzig GC is over, and it’s time to look back at some of the information we got from Funcom about the development of Age of Conan.

More interesting bosses
One of the things Erling Ellingson said, was that Age of Conan will be borrowing and learning from World of Warcraft boss encounters. So far bosses have been quite static, and the differences between the bosses had been animations, looks and hitpoints. Bosses in World of Warcraft have always been challenging for a different reason, they require tactics. Hopefully AoC will incorporate more challenging bosses, allowing us a more interesting end-game.

DirectX 10 Screenshots
Over at TenTonHammer you can see screenshots from the new DirectX 10 build for Age of Conan. I have to agree with one of the commenters that better graphics should not be the primary focus of Funcom, but I guess this has been in the work chain for a long time. You see the screenshots here.

Age of Conan PvP Patch
The PvP patch for Age of Conan is one again delayed, and is now planned for release on September 10. You can however check it out on the testlive server. From what we have found, there will only be one tier of PvP equipment at the launch, available from PvP level 2.

Eurogamer got an article up on the new content that is soon expected in Age of Conan - well, “relatively soon”, as Erling Ellingsen said. What soon is, we just have to wait and see. It seems like the new content will be added first, before we see the PvP improvements and DirectX 10 support.

Funcom acknowledges that the content for level 50 plus is currently too sparse, and will mainly focus on this. The commons district of Tarantia will be opened, where you will be able to choose a side in the conflict between the street bandits and rules of the rooftops. Apparently there will be quite complex moral choices and quests for this area. The Black Castle dungeon will be expanded a lot from the current “singleplayer dungeon” to a full group dungeon.

One of the new areas will be the cimmerian area Ymir’s Pass, suited for level 55 and above. It is promised to be filled with dozens of yours of questing and other elements, including the dungeon Thunder River.

You can read the full article here.