What's to come in Rise of the Godslayer
by Seraphina Brennan 
Dec 7th 2009 at 6:00PM
Filed under: At a glance, Betas, Fantasy, Age of Conan, Previews, Massively Event Coverage
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.
Obvious things first -- the play field of today's preview was huge. The single province of Khitai shown today is a wide, sprawling area that includes environmental changes, multiple cities, and indoor/outdoor areas all without a single load screen in sight. Even the open areas will undergo environmental changes, such as the colors of the sky changing along with weather effects, to show a delineation between areas in the play field. For example, the marshes will become thick with fog and darker the deeper you get into them. One of the main things the team wanted to accomplish was to provide more open areas for players to roam around in, and if this province is any example of the other areas in the expansion then Age of Conan players will have many wide-open areas to look forward to.
To travel the lands of Khitai, the developers used the new tiger mount today. While there's not much to say about the mount other than it's a pretty tiger and it can roar on command, the questline for getting the mount is quite involved. Players will be involved in training the mount from a cub all the way up to adulthood thanks to a string of quests involving the mount itself.
Monster AI is also another focus of the expansion, as the developers wanted to keep encounters fresh and different instead of just becoming another set of slugfests with new monsters. Today's preview showed off multiple new enemies, such as the firebirds that run away from melee players until they're tapped by a ranged attack (which makes the rest of the flock stick their heads in the ground, leaving them open for melee players), water buffalo that remain neutral until one of their cubs are attacked, wolves that attack with a pack mentality, and monsters that attempt to ambush players.Topping all of this off was the battlefield that rages onwards in the heart of today's play field. Two factions, the Tamarain Tigers and the Scholars of Cheng'ho, constantly fight in a war-torn area of the province. Players will be able to join a side of the battle and fight against the other faction's NPCs and players in order to rank up with the faction and get special equipment, armor, and other benefits. Of course this means tanking your reputation with the other side, much like a Scryers/Aldor approach from World of Warcraft.
Lastly, exploration nuts can cheer happily thanks to the addition of shrines and dig sites. Dig sites are new patches of dirt that denote areas where players can dig with shovels to uncover quests and items, while shrines are a bit more of an esoteric achievement. The shrines of Khitai are both found in cities and hidden away in the far reaches of the play field. Players who know their lore or do a little bit of experimentation can honor the gods of the shrine with the right emotes, giving them a temporary buff from the gods. Do the wrong emote, however, and you'll find your character cursed and debuffed for being ignorant.
All in all, Khitai seems very different from the Age of Conan we know and love today. So far the changes look quite positive for the game, but only time will tell how much the team has learned from their prior mistakes.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jack said on 6:21PM 12-07-2009
YES! "The single province of Khitai shown today is a wide, sprawling area that includes environmental changes, multiple cities, and indoor/outdoor areas all without a single load screen in sight."
This alone is great news!!
Reply
Mr Lee said on 8:45AM 12-09-2009
That "single province" comment near the start of the article was inaccurate and misleading. What was shown was Chosain Province which doesn't contain any loading within the zone (other than into instanced dungeons).
Khitai is the whole continent that the expansion is set in and does have loading between the major zones.
Headcheese said on 11:49AM 12-26-2009
...maybe slightly misleading yeah, but not inaccurate. "The single province of Khitai shown today".... meaning the single province, a part of khitai, shown today...
And they did mention in the preview that there is loading screens between different zones, but all still logically connected. But if you go to Xfire you can watch the whole recording of the event and see for yourself.
blindside044 said on 6:48PM 12-07-2009
*just going to repeat what I said in the last preview messege*
All this sounds fine and dandy, and it bugs me a little that I won't be playing it because of the god awful amount of traveling that's done in this game. I spend way too much time running back and forth between quests and towns that it drives me crazy. I really enjoy the game, but I spend A LOT more time just running around then playing the game. It's really the only thing thats keeping me from resubbing to the game...
I guess I'm just spoiled by some of the MMOs I have played: Guild Wars where you can travel to any town at any time. LoTROs hunters "porting" abilites, having stables at every town, and just the quests (givers) not being so far apart. Champions Online travel powers making everything pretty quick to get too. DDOs teleporters...
Reply
Jack said on 7:02PM 12-07-2009
The travel part make the world more real and open to me! If you not like it maybe you not get back to the single player rpgs with map travel! I take long travel over grinding any day!!
blindside044 said on 7:16PM 12-07-2009
huh? I don't play single player rpgs, bud. Nor do I enjoy grinding at all. I actually really hate grinding. I generally haven't had a problem with it with the games I have played so I'm not sure what you are talking about.
Jack said on 7:32PM 12-07-2009
I am talking about the way MMOs need make you loss time! They not want you to get all quest guys next to you and you just bam level to the max they need add something to keep you busy! WoW did it with travel, Guild Wars did not need it like they did not had any subs. Lots of MMOs do it with long grinds and quests that are really grinds to start with. I just saying that this travel thing pretty sure will work like WoW you go to a arena that also is a quest hub and you can do like 5/6 quests there and later you get a quest to go to a nearby quest hub and so on.... If they do have you running around like a mad man you doing something wrong or the game got a bad quest line design!
devo said on 10:29AM 12-08-2009
Guess you haven't played in awhile. There are multiple ways to travel now. Wagoneers will take you directly to zones, your path of Asura can be used for instant travel and with the veteran rewards you can pick up direct porting abilities to every major place now.
Holgar said on 7:24PM 12-07-2009
My mantra for most Devs is "I'll believe in it when its launched and working." This goes double for Funcom.
Reply
Jack said on 7:39PM 12-07-2009
Sadly this is true... AoC did look really good when they where marketing the game! Anyone remember the great level 20 cap betas?! Nice full voice acting and a great quest line... Just to find out after you did buy the game that most freaking gaming review sites did not play pass the starter zone and that there are almost no voices at the main zones some quest lines where bugged and worst there was not really any PVP system in place and no rewards... And for some the game was not even running on a frame rate of 6!
spamero said on 7:32PM 12-07-2009
I am with you on this one Holgar.. heard it before.. We gonna have amazing mounted combat and border kingdoms and whatnot.. all turned out to be bugged or not even implemented marketing crap... unless they view on mounted combat is being killed while you are mounted or retarted murder system which allows low level players gank high level players?
Seriously... whoever is having fun in AoC - good for you, but Failcom will never see a penny from me.
Reply
Lateris said on 8:00PM 12-07-2009
I am interested to see how Craig Morrison's leadership will fit into this release. He did a great job leading AO and picking up the pieces.
Reply
h4ngedm4n said on 9:18PM 12-07-2009
Yeah I too will pay attention after it actually goes live.
Reply
Bluefunk said on 11:20PM 12-07-2009
Can't blame you guys who say "wait and see". DC let alot of people down but the new Director is making a big difference. Sadly it's not just FC either NCsoft and the vision trailer proved that.
However I watched this live stream and the expansion looks wicked!!! :)
Reply
zeca_014 said on 11:23PM 12-07-2009
Now all those wow funboys said Aoc suck and blabla bla Wow > Aoc
will eat in the Funcom hands!
Reply
Nearly Nil said on 12:41PM 12-08-2009
Whatever your opinion of the game at launch, AoC has come a long, long way since then. It is is solid, deserving AAA title in a landscape littered with the dross of failed WoW-killers (WAR). Yeah, the voice-acting bait-and-switch bugged me alot too, but I dig the gameplay most of all. It has a great chance to grow in a big way if it ever makes the jump to console...
Reply
Bezza said on 4:31AM 12-08-2009
I can understand the legion of funcom doubters who say, wait and see. Funcom will obviously have to prove themselves to you all and earn your faith in AoC the hard way, by proving themselves as capable of delivering on their promises. Sounds fair to me.
On the other hand, you folks should be sure to give funcom the chance to make emends. The swag of improvements made to AoC since the botched release is impressive and the game really has come a very long way since those early days. Here's to hoping that funcom have learned their lesson and will deliver on their promises. I am looking forward to the expansion.
Reply
electrobix said on 6:07AM 12-08-2009
AoC is a fantastic game, so many improvement and developments made in the last year. Content gaps fixed, end game activities added.
They need to develop the open pvp side more to make fort sieges more purposeful but I think that is comming soon.
It is a real they did not wait longer to release this game. I hope some of the people who say they will never touch it again do change their minds. It really is 10 times better than at launch.
Reply
devo said on 10:37AM 12-08-2009
The fact that the xfire demo was a live demonstration of the beta was way more appealing to me than some epic trailer montage (although those are fun too). It was nice to see that this is simply not just a new zone but a lot of improvements to the AI and addressing player issues regarding the zoning etc.
I played at launch and went through the same thing everyone else did, left till patch 1.05 and am sold ever since. It is miles ahead of where it was at launch and the most fun I have had in a mmo to date.
Reply
Bluefunk said on 12:01PM 12-08-2009
I agree, this is working beta of the xpac (they only showed this one playfield but others are in beta too).
Compare this to that crap visions trailer from Aion. I say crap because it was a working mock-up of possible features to be included at some point maybe in the future.