This month has been quite a journey for us here on the Age of Conan team. Launch periods are always hectic and this one was no different. However while we might be a little tired this month, we are also pretty happy. An expansion on this scale is a major undertaking, and I am very proud of the effort the team has put in to launching Rise of the Godslayer (in two different regions, with the launch of the Korean version into open beta also having taken place this month).

It has been a lot of fun watching players get to grips with the expansion content, and seeing people enjoying their explorations of the lands of Khitai.

It almost slipped past without noticing since we were launching, but amid everything the game also celebrated its second birthday. It has been quite a ride over the last two years, with a lot of challenges along the way and a lot of progress. The expansion has really been the culmination of all that work, and everything we were working hard to establish during the last eighteen months. The game has improved in many ways, and it has been very satisfying to see people providing a lot of very good word of mouth to that effect.

That however does not mean in the slightest that we consider the job 'done'. The beauty of MMO development is that there is always the next target to look forward to. So you might be tempted to say 'no rest for the wicked', but let's take a look at what lies out beyond the expansion...

Moving forward...

So what comes next now that the expansion is out? In the short term we’ll be continuing with a few smaller updates, tweaking and adjusting the expansion content and adding in some new quests to Khitai. It is important that we make sure we can polish up the Khitan quests and areas as much as possible. So we will be continuing to focus on improving the performance there as well.

Looking a little further out we are already at work on the next stages of the tier four raids which will expand upon the story of the expansion, and start to draw together the mysteries of Kara Korum and the strange behaviour of the Imperial throne. We are also looking to add some more team instances to Paikang itself that expand upon the Insurrection and their goals in Khitai. We will talk a little bit more about that as we move along with these new areas.

There is another significant update that we will be working on behind the scenes and that is the next integration of our Dreamworld engine. This involves an update to the games engine, including new versions of the render engine. Some of it is 'under the hood' maintenance as it were, but some will also be noticeable in game as we look to improve the DX10 version of the game further, amongst other things. This process will start shortly and is a complex one. Strictly speaking it isn't linked to any specific content updates, so hopefully we will be able to also deliver some of the new content mentioned above while this integration is progressing. Continuing to improve the performance of our underlying technology is something that is important to us, and something that we will continue to work with.

We are also starting to look at a new draft of potential PVP changes. Some small, in the shape of some tweaks and improvements to the existing systems. We would definitely like to tweak the Shrines gameplay a little further, and that is something we will look at over the next few months. We are also though looking at a few things that offer longer term benefits. Included there are things like changing the way the mini-games queues work at a fundamental level to ensure fairer fights, and also starting to investigate further the possibility of offering cross-server PVP games. This is something that we would love to add to the game, but it is also something that involves a few technical challenges, so there are no promises on that count just yet, but it is an area that we are working on.

There is also the never-ending list of player requests and dev team wish-list items, things like vanity armor options, more bank options, the usual laundry list of class concerns and suggestions, and some more work on the GUI side of things that we haven't quite made decisions on just yet. These next few weeks as we work through the summer (when much of the team takes a well deserved break) are about assessing all those possibilities and seeing which of them are worth prioritising as we move forward.

So overall, the answer to the 'what next?' question is more of 'a little bit of everything' rather than one specific theme for the time being. We want to continue to improve the game and build upon the progress we have seen so far. That means now that the expansion is out, we will take the opportunity to address a wider selection of smaller and back-end or performance updates.

In Closing...

The expansion has been a major endeavour and we are very pleased that people seem to be having fun and enjoying the new content, and we are dedicated to keeping that momentum going through the rest of this year.