I guess I should shortly introduce myself before going any further. My name is Per. I am the Producer for Age of Conan. I have been working for Funcom for several years; mostly with gameplay and content production. Allow me now to talk a little about some of the cool content we are planning to release later this year, after “The Savage Coast of Turan” is released. There is a quite a lot of exciting new content coming your way!


The Upcoming Content

What we’re planning to release during the last half of the year are pieces of content that I believe many of you have heard mentioned before. It is content that we know players have been expecting and waiting for, and it is content we are looking forward to finally being able to give to you.

House of Crom

Yes, really. I know what some of you are thinking: House of Crom is that mythical dungeon they bring up every time they don’t know what they’re going to do next isn’t it? No, this time we’re actually going to deliver it! We want this out as badly as you do – maybe even more so.

What is House of Crom? House of Crom is an instance, well – two instances actually, located in Cimmeria. There is one group instance and one social instance, both intended for end-game characters.

Allow me to digress a little – I’m sure there are those of you who wonder why it has taken us so long to finish House of Crom. I will make an attempt at a short explanation. The initial plans for House of Crom were what some people would consider “extremely ambitious”. Ambition equals risk. We do not work on only one thing at a time; we always work on several deliveries in parallel. Doing that usually means you will reach a point where you have to prioritize one of them over the others – when you reach that point the most risky thing is usually what you have to let go. That risky thing has been House of Crom four times now.

It hasn’t all been for nothing though! The current incarnation of House of Crom is by far the best one. The story being told in House of Crom now is quite possibly my favourite in the game. We have a couple of new cool and very interesting creatures to introduce you to, and there will be types of gameplay that you have never encountered before in AoC. I am very proud of the way the team has taken the challenge it has been to get House of Crom into its current state – it is one of the most difficult things we have done, but the final result will be worth all the hard work.

But let me get back to who we’re making this for. The group instance is aimed at end-game characters; it has several encounters, one of which is an awesome poem! The social instance has a bit wider range. The entry level is quite reasonable; the first encounters should be doable by most level 80 groups. The final encounter on the other hand will require a very well coordinated team of experienced players to defeat. In total there are more than 20 different encounters in the two instances. The most challenging part of it all however will be to get a passing grade on the Atlantean history test.

Tier Four raids

I know there are those who think we have forgotten about them. We haven’t. What happened to the tier four raids is very similar to what happened to House of Crom. You could perhaps say we went “a little” overboard when designing these encounters. They became very difficult, and after seeing how the first two worked out on live, we realized we might have pushed things too far. In addition a few other things happened (including the announcement of a certain movie) that resulted in the remaining encounters getting postponed.

What do you have to look forward to in the Jade Citadel? There are a total of 5 encounters remaining to beat. You will be able to continue and conclude the Khitai storyline. There is the opportunity for an audience with the Emperor himself, but not before you have made a very difficult decision! You will get to explore his darkest secrets, some of which might be buried in your own past. I think those able to defeat the final challenge in the Jade Citadel will find it a worthy ending to the great Khitai story.


The Schedule

As mentioned, we’re working on several things at the same time, let’s have a look at what we have planned for the rest of the year:

Blood and Glory PVP server update – This is currently being tested on our Testlive server. We will open the live servers when the feedback indicates that it is ready.

The Savage Coast of Turan – We will be talking a lot more about this in the next development letter, and in a series of articles and interviews leading up to the launch of this adventure pack. You should start seeing more information about this over the coming weeks. The team is working hard on this at the moment and it is really exciting to watch it come together.

The first major update after “The Savage Coast of Turan” will have a lot of optimization and improvements, it will include among other things:
  • Item Database optimisations
  • Network message compression
  • Server-side PhysX implementation
  • Load balancing improvements


House of Crom – We intend to release this in the last quarter of the year

Tier 4 Raids – We intend to release this in the last quarter of the year as well.


Wrapping up

That’s it from me for now. I hope you are looking forward to the upcoming content. The team is working hard on making it all happen, and we are looking forward to see all this make its way to the live servers – and if we can find the time we might sneak in a few small surprises as well. Until next time, enjoy your stay in Hyboria.