Age of Conan’s Alternate Advancement demystified
Filed under: Age of Conan, Expansions, Game mechanics, News items
In an effort to bring interesting new ideas into Age of Conan for players in the higher levels, Funcom has decided to add in an Alternate Advancement system as part of the upcoming Rise of the Godslayer expansion. The idea is that rather than just giving players new levels to play through, they’d like to give people the chance to develop their characters more than ever before. With that said, as with any new system added to an MMO, there is the question of how precisely the new mechanics are going to work when it comes down to it.
Thankfully, the Funcom staff have written up an excellent post about the Alternate Advancement system in Age of Conan for players from levels 20 to 80. The full post over on MMORPG.com offers a solid breakdown of what players can expect — from the use of Prowess, Mastery and Expertise on down to offline achievement points that should keep more casual players in the earning loop. For adventurers who like to call the wild lands of Hyboria home, this is a must-read dev blog, so be sure to pop over there and give it a look.
Age of Conan’s Alternate Advancement demystified originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A look into Rise of the Godslayer’s Northern Grasslands
Filed under: Fantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Video, Age of Conan, Expansions, Previews, News items
The team at Funcom are hard at work on the new content coming to Age of Conan, like guild renown and raids, as well as the upcoming expansion Rise of the Godslayer. Thankfully, they managed to steal a few moments out of that time to send along some screenshots, concept art, and a great video of the exotic Northern Grasslands area that players will be adventuring through in the upcoming expansion.
Players who pick up Rise of the Godslayer will be treated to beautiful yet dangerous locales, where they’ll meet strange and fascinating new people, and then kill them. Just kidding! Well, not really. Mounted atop tigers, the Khitans will undoubtedly be a fierce fighting force — and that shiny new armor certainly looks pretty cool too. (Thankfully, the red accents will hide the blood well when you strip it off your dead enemies.) Be sure to check out the gallery and the teaser video behind the break for all the latest from this future corner of Hyboria.
Gallery: Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer
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A look into Rise of the Godslayer’s Northern Grasslands originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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What’s to come in Rise of the Godslayer
Filed under: At a glance, Betas, Fantasy, Age of Conan, Previews, Massively Event Coverage
Tigers, PvP, corruption, and more are coming with Age of Conan’s next expansion, Rise of the Godslayer. Xfire has hosted a sneak peek live broadcast hosted by game director Craig Morrison and lead expansion designer Joel Bylos, and the two have shown off some of the inner workings of the expansion, including some of the changes and additions players will find.
We here at Massively were watching closely and taking notes, so if you didn’t get the chance to watch the video then no worries! As we said before, we have your back and we’re ready to take you headlong into the blood and corruption of Age of Conan’s expansion.
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What’s to come in Rise of the Godslayer originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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PAX 2009: We travel east with Rise of the Godslayer
Filed under: Age of Conan, Expansions, Massively Event Coverage
Age of Conan came to PAX pretty much directly off their announcement of the Rise of the Godslayer expansion. So when we arrived at our appointment to check the game out and speak with Executive Producer Craig Morrison, you can imagine our curiosity levels were quite high.
This expansion is taking players far into the eastern lands of Khitai, which is essentially a retelling of our own ancient eastern worlds. Something we were told right away is that Funcom wanted to avoid Japanese influences, as they’re fairly over-saturated in videogames. Instead, they’re going for a heavy focus on Korean and Chinese culture for the lands of Khitai.
Gallery: Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer
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PAX 2009: We travel east with Rise of the Godslayer originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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PAX 2009: We travel east with Rise of the Godslayer part 2
Filed under: Age of Conan, Expansions, Massively Event Coverage
Continue reading PAX 2009: We travel east with Rise of the Godslayer part 2
PAX 2009: We travel east with Rise of the Godslayer part 2 originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Expansions, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
The worlds we live in are always expanding some way or another. In our real world, we get promotions or new career opportunities. In our virtual equivalents, it’s level cap raises and new classes. Yet for years and years, too many expansions have overlooked what they’re truly capable of accomplishing.
In real life, we can’t go back and make our teens, twenties and thirties better than they once were because that’s physically impossible. So why in these worlds of infinite possibilities, have countless developers scoffed at the chance to do this very thing?
Lucky for us, Funcom and Blizzard recently both asked themselves this very question. While the latter may be doing something much more grandiose than the former, both deserve our praise for finally turning around and swimming upstream in a current of same old grind goals. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Blizzard is sitting on the Mt. Everest of money hills.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan offering two free weeks to previous players
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items
It’s been a long while coming, but Funcom has finally announced their first re-evaluation campaign for Age of Conan. Anyone who possesses a previously active account can — as of today, July 8th — reactivate and play for two full weeks entirely for free. In the last year, the game has seen a literal avalanche of updates and improvements. So if you haven’t been back in Hyboria since launch last year, you’re in for quite a few big surprises.
The timing of the expansion announcement and this two free week return are obviously not coincidental. You can be sure that Funcom has been planning this quite carefully to get people buzzing about their game again, and kudos to them for pulling it off nicely. Of course, we’ve yet to learn what’s coming in the expansion but something tells us it’ll be doing everything it can to impress both previous and current players.
Age of Conan offering two free weeks to previous players originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan to unveil new expansion at GamesCom
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Events, real-world, Expansions, News items
The first proper expansion for Age of Conan will be unveiled this August at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany. Funcom’s Erling Ellingsen confirmed the news:
“Yes, we will be revealing the first expansion for Age of Conan at the GamesCom show in August. We have lots of exciting stuff to reveal and Conan players and gamers in general are in for a real treat, but for now, our lips are sealed until then!”
The unveil will feature in-game footage and a preview of the quests, monsters, new environments and other additions that will make up the expansion. This news comes not long after the release of a major content patch for AoC, and should help keep that positive momentum going.
Age of Conan to unveil new expansion at GamesCom originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Age of Conan expansion concept art unveiled
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Expansions, Lore, Rumors
As we mentioned, Funcom’s Hyborian MMORPG Age of Conan is set to expand. As of yesterday, the concept art first shown at Leipzig is now available to view, courtesy of GameSpy. The dragon banners, pagoda-like structures and mask style suggest that Khitai, Robert E. Howard’s composite version of China, may be the setting. If so - and this is only speculation - it might be a promising choice, despite not receiving much attention in the original Howard tales.
Khitai is far to the east of Aquilonia, Stygia and Cimmeria. In A Witch Shall Be Born, Howard portrayed Khitai as a place of sorcery and deep tangled jungles: ‘He was a magician from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdom after a journey to Stygia. He took me with him to purple-towering Paikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-festooned jungles of bamboo, and there I grew to womanhood under his teaching. Age had steeped him deep in black wisdom, not weakened his powers of evil. Many things he taught me…‘ The current race options in Age of Conan don’t allow any race but Stygians to be mages, so a Khitai-based expansion could change that. The Tower of the Elephant also mentions ‘priests of Yun‘ who dwell in the lost jungles of Khitai. If the concept art shows rogues and soldiers, a player character Khitai race could be the first to have access to all four class options.
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Age of Conan expansion, updates, and film tie-in detailed at GC
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Expansions
The site also put forward information about upcoming updates to the gameworld. Hints at the “Black Castle”, the Commons district of the capital city Tarantia, and the much-anticipated Ymir’s Pass are all in the article. The Pass was mentioned by Erling Ellingson as one of his favorite upcoming content pieces in our recent interview with the project lead. Head on over to the site for all the gory details.
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