This month marks an important milestone for the team here as we prepare to roll out the next major game update for Age of Conan.

Update 1.05 is here

It’s been in the works for some time now, and been put through its paces on the test servers for a few months now. It is certainly more than a little nerve wracking to see an update that has had so much effort and dedication poured into it released to the live servers.

It is also likely that there are some elements we will still need to tweak and adjust further, and we are prepared and ready for that. The test server cycle has been great, and I’d like to extend my thanks to everyone who has put time into testing the update and providing their feedback. We couldn’t have done this without you.

Getting to grips with the Update

Things are a little different with the revamped RPG system, you will have to experience and learn the new feat trees, you will have to experiment a little to find the new builds that work best for you. Every class and play-style has new aspects to consider and we expect that it will take a few days or weeks for people to fully explore the new possibilities.

So the sub-requirement of a little patience also comes with exploring the changes and seeing what works best with the new system. It won’t be that everything that worked well with the old system is the best solution with the new changes.

I think the building blocks are now there for moving the game forward. The ambition of this update has always been for the changes to the system to allow us to create better and more meaningful skills, abilities and equipment in the future. I think the changes do achieve this goal, but the deployment of these changes to the live servers, really mark a beginning to this development, not the end. These are the tools that will allow us to take the game forward.

You will continue to see changes and additions to class and item balance as we move forward. Just as there are aspects of the new systems that players will have to get familiar with I am sure there will be elements that the developers have to adjust for and add to as we move forward.

This is an exciting ‘stepping stone’ for the game as it were, that opens up a host of new options for us to craft even better and more meaningful content for you all in the future. It’s a challenge we are very much looking forward to!

Tarantia Commons

With all the talk and discussion around system, class and items changes that always tend to dominate player discussion of a major game update it is easy to forget that 1.05 also brings with it a substantial content addition in the shape of the Tarantia Commons play-field.

I hope you all enjoy getting to explore the underbelly of Conan’s capital city. With interesting and engaging quests, and some great dynamic elements, I think the team have done a wonderful live of realizing the moral shades of gray that fit so perfectly with the Hyboria Howard originally described. One of the fantastic elements of the license is that we get to explore situations and stories that don’t always paint the world in black and white or good and evil. Tarantia commons encapsulates this perfectly and I am looking forward to seeing how players enjoy the new content.

This update will not see the end of the exploration of Tarantia Commons either. Looming across the city sky-line is the Iron Tower, a foreboding looking place if ever there was one. This will be the location for the next content addition, a new level 80 group dungeon that will most likely be opened up ‘in-between’ this update and the next major update.

Moving on…

There is of course no rest for the wicked as they say, and parts of the team are already hard work on the next game updates. The focus for the next update cycle is really in three main areas

The first focus, and the major feature addition, for the next cycle will be guild game-play. As we have mentioned before one of the major focuses for this next set of content is improving our guild functionality and the purpose and role of guilds in the game. I will explore this in more depth, and reveal a little about the direction these changes will take, in the next community letter.

In addition we will have new content as we move on to looking at the addition of new high level content for both groups and raids in the majestic halls of the House of Crom. The team is preparing some really fantastic game-play suitable for such an epic location. Continuing to add even more high level content is an important goal for us and this location plays a huge part in that. As the next major content addition you can look forward to hearing much more about this over the summer months as we prepare the challenges and encounters that await you in this most imposing and deadly of dungeons.

Then we also have the ongoing task of adding more goals and objectives to the Borderlands PVP play-fields. This is something that we are busily planning and working on already and hope to be able to add to over the course of the next update cycle.

Before signing off…

Lastly, but by no means least, many have been asking what the plans are for the first expansion to Age of Conan. This is something that we are getting closer to discussing publically, but you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer. We plan on showing much more at some of the trade conventions late in the summer, specifically Gamescom in Cologne in August and PAX in September, so mark your diaries accordingly! We will be there and will be revealing much more about the expansion pack and what you can expect from it.

So that’s it for this month, there are most definitely exciting times ahead, and we look forward to seeing you all in Hyboria!