AoC's April game director letter: roll a new level 50 in the next patch

by William Dobson Apr 30th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Patches, News items

Age of Conan's game director Craig Morrison has penned a 'state of the game' letter for April, primarily to discuss progress on the upcoming patch 1.05. Undoubtedly the biggest piece of information to come out of the letter is the news that players will be able to create a new character that starts at level 50 when the patch hits. There are, of course, a couple of caveats to this; the option is only available to players that have a character who is level 50 or higher, and it only works once. Players who reach level 50 for the first time after the patch will also get their chance to roll a new 50 of any class, but it sounds like it's a one-per-account offer, not per-character.

Morrison explained that the re-roll is being offered so that people can try out a new class with updated 1.05 feats and skills, without enduring the first 50 levels again. Some form of concession on feat re-training will also be given so that players can decide how to tackle the new options available to existing characters. Morrison leaves us with the hint that more news relating to character options will be revealed come May, around the time of AoC's first anniversary.

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, aoc-patch-1.05, aoc-update-1.05, craig-morrison, funcom, game-director, insta-level, level-50, re-roll

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JP said on 11:13AM 4-30-2009

I think it's pretty commendable that they acknowledge that not everyone will be happy with the changes. Especially to their class. So, they're offered this as compensation, to help anyone completely disappointed w/ their class changes, but still wanting to play the game.

Plus, the openness to allowing players to respec cheap or free is a must w/ the changes coming.

postman said on 11:31AM 4-30-2009

so this in the AoC NGE that we are seeing here?

JP said on 11:42AM 4-30-2009

LOL. Clever. ;)

It's like the NGE in reverse, b/c it's actualy a good change.

Grok said on 11:59AM 4-30-2009

THIS is how you reward people for sticking with a game through the ups and downs. Well done Funcom.

In one fell swoop you've communicated to your fanbase that you appreciate their loyalty, and that you're confident enough in the changes you've made that you don't have to force people to grind out low levels to draw out subscriptions.

Iokthemonkey said on 12:45PM 4-30-2009

that you're confident enough in the changes you've made that you don't have to force people to grind out low levels to draw out subscriptions.

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Or another way of looking at it is youknow you're going to destroy the game's balance even further and so are offering everybody an opportunity to switch class when they discover their current character is now completely useless.

crsh said on 12:18PM 4-30-2009

I haven't tried AoC again since I left in September after trying to stick to it for 3 months; the game was terrible then, I got to lv70 and finally had to admit what a lot of players were saying about the lack of content at higher levels was basically (and sadly) true.

I heard it got a lot better since then, and frankly I'm mostly happy that Gaute Godager is gone; perhaps it'll be time for me to check into it again when 1.05 hits the streets.

danarchy said on 12:25PM 4-30-2009

I read this and thought about reopening my account my for first time since I hit cap and got bored. I did actually enjoy the fighting at times

Bigfoot said on 1:57PM 4-30-2009

So is this basically the /level for DAoC? :P

Jess said on 3:40PM 4-30-2009

I've tried this game three seperate times now and was turned away every time. This incentive is cool, much like the /level of DAoC.

Still it's not enough for me to return, because it's not AoC's perks, graphics, combat or music that turned me away: all of the above are amazing.

It was the community. Easily the worst MMORPG community I have ever encountered.

So congrats to Funcom for somewhat turning this game around, but when you combine FFA PvP and pixel boobs, apparently the community is just not one for me.