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Posts tagged Conan
Age of Conan: Unchained: Five Days of Bosses Incoming
May 22nd
To celebrate five years of Age of Conan, Funcom will be unleashing five days worth of epic boss monsters invading Hyboria. The event is scheduled to kick off on Thursday, May 23rd. In addition, membership benefits are being improved.
But the in-game event is just one part of the anniversary celebration. Membership in Age of Conan: Unchained is getting greatly improved. All characters on Member accounts will now receive the Blessing of Asura item, which doubles experience points from killing monsters for one hour per day. They also earn one Alternate Advancement point, which can be spent at level 80 to learn handy abilities, for each level they gain. In addition Members more than triple the amount of Bonus Points they receive each month, which can be spent in the Item Shop, and still of course retain all previous benefits Membership entailed.
Read more about the celebration on the Age of Conan Unchained site.
Age of Conan: Unchained: Latest Game Director’s Letter Arrives
Apr 30th
Joel Bylos has taken to the Age of Conan: Unchained site to post the latest game director's letter. In it, Joel discusses the multi-phased transition to single server tech similar to what is utilized by The Secret World. Then Bylos goes on to announce several significant changes including some PvP revamps and a delay in the overhaul of the tradeskill feature.
Let me try and give you a little inside information on how the process is currently looking.
Functionally it works in our internal builds, in that you can break down items (not all of them) and combine items and discover recipes.
However, it is missing most of the background work that needs to be done in order for it to work in the game and the game systems. This includes the Guild Renown system which will need to be updated to use the new crafting system, Battlekeeps and Guild Cities and even the much-loved Shrines of Bori PvP game. All of these features interact with the old crafting system on some level and they all require updates to be able to be used with the new crafting system.
Read more on the Age of Conan: Unchained site.
More >Age of Conan: Unchained: ’Not Going Anywhere’ As Development Moves to North Carolina
Jan 25th
The latest Monthly Update from Age of Conan's Craig Morrison releases the news that development of the game will be continued by a centralized team in North Carolina. Some members of the AoC team will be moving on but Morrison assures players that AoC isn't going anywhere.
Obviously the recent news about studio re-structuring brings with it a whole host of questions about the future for Age of Conan. The good news is that the game won't be going anywhere and that development will be continued by a central team for all our titles based at our North Carolina studio.
Of course, this also means that some members of our current team will be moving on to new challenges while others will continue as part of the new central team which will continue forming quality updates for us. Our Raleigh studio already has most of our customer service, billing, quality assurance and community teams, so bringing the developers closer to them will be beneficial for a live game. The new shared pool of people is a very experienced, passionate and skilled team that I highly respect, with a continued passion for working on all three games.
Read the full letter on the Age More >
Age of Conan: Unchained: Part 1 of Secrets of the Dragon’s Spine Launches
Jan 10th
Funcom has announced that the latest update has been applied to Age of Conan servers. The patch brings the first part of the Secrets of the Dragon's Spine into the game and gives players a completely new zone to explore.
Update 4.0 opens the gates to the brand new playfield "Dragon's Spine" and is the first part of "The Secrets of Dragon's Spine" update series which provides players with all new Hyborian experiences as they venture to the desert region located south and west of the ancient city of Pteion. Rippling desert dunes stretches for miles in every direction from the spine, lifeless, except for a small oasis in the mountain’s shadow, and treacherous caves and tunnels weave in and out of the mountain rock. But men are not the only beings to have forged a thriving civilization in the desolate desert, many secrets lay buried beneath the sands.
Also available now is the group instance "Sepulcher of the Wyrm".
The new content is available to Premium players exclusively.
Check out the full notes on the Age of Conan EU forum.
Age of Conan: Unchained: F2P Option Retooled
Dec 13th
Funcom has announced that players taking advantage of Age of Conan's free to play option will now have new benefits added to help them enjoy their play time. Among other things, Funcom has unlocked all character classes for F2Pers.
- All Classes Unlocked! Free players may now try any of the games classes completely free.
- Classic Dungeons unlocked! The complete selection of classic dungeons are now unlocked for free play. This includes ALL the pre-80 dungeons and a selection of level 80 dungeons as well! Level 80 adventures in The Crow's Nest, The Iron Tower, Xibaluku, The Slaughterhouse Cellar and Attilius' Mansion are all now available for free play!
- Gold cap increased! In order to allow free players to engage more in the end game economy, in particular with the incoming new crafting system in mind, the gold cap on free accounts has been raised from 2g to 10g.
Read the full announcement on the Age of Conan site.
Thanks, Marz.at.Play, for the tip!
Age of Conan: Unchained: Join Us for an AoC Livecast TODAY!
Nov 26th
MMORPG.com and the Age of Conan team have teamed up to bring our readers a special live event with a focus on the systems updates and revamps coming in the Dragon's Spine updates, primarily the crafting revamp. The team will also be answering questions from listeners so be sure to check it out TODAY at 6:00 pm EST/3:00 pm PST in the MMORPG.com Live Stream Channel!
Age of Conan: Unchained: September Monthly Update Published
Sep 28th
The Age of Conan Monthly Update has been published for September. In it, the team talks a lot about the forthcoming Secrets of the Dragon's Spine content update. The blog lays out the plan to release portions of SotDS in episodic fashion from now through an epic conclusion to the quest line in 2013. The blog also talks about other plans that are in the works as 2012 comes to a close.
The plan is then to continue with a combination of new playable areas (as with Turan and Dragon's Spine) and combine that with revamps and unchained versions of the older areas in order to keep them relevant and interesting as the game continues to mature. We want to try and avoid the situation where there is great, fun, content not being used because the meta-game of progression and expansion has moved on. Therefore we will be working on both areas moving forward, which means a ton of new free game updates coming down the pipeline.
Read the full post on the Age of Conan: Unchained site.
Age of Conan: Unchained: Secrets of Dragon’s Spine Announced
Sep 3rd
Funcom has announced the next series of updates for Age of Conan Unchained. Called "Secrets of Dragon's Spine", the content will be released in an episodic fashion with releases approximately every six weeks. The first update is slated to be released in the next few months and will feature a desert location filled with new dungeons, quests, monsters and rewards.
Within the new content, which is aimed at level eighty players, there will be several new dungeons, a new raid area, a massive outdoor region (roughly the same size as the coast of Ardashir), and a new PvP area, as well as a host of new rewards, armor sets, weapons and other cultural items. There will also be a new mount type that will be revealed later on, which is closely linked to the story in the new area. The new dungeons are called The Coils of Ubah Kan, The Sepulchral of the Wyrm and The Slithering Chaos, and will offer the same kind of selection of experiences as in ‘The Savage Coast of Turan’ update.
Read more about Secrets of Dragon's Spine on the Age of Conan Unchained site.
Age of Conan: Unchained: Next Phase of ’Single Server Technology’ in August
Jul 23rd
The next phase of Age of Conan's transition to a single-server technology has been dated for August 7-8th. In the next phase, both the US and EU servers will merge down into three server types: PvE, PvP and Blood & Glory.
Why aren't the US & EU servers being combined as well? Funcom explains that "technical considerations" prevented them from pursuing this option.
Age of Conan: Unchained: May 2012 Monthly Update Published
May 31st
The Age of Conan team has published its monthly update with the news that the annual survey is ready for players to complete. As an incentive for finishing the survey, players will be entered into a drawing for free premium lifetime subscriptions. The letter then goes into a bit of detail about what the team has been working on for the last month.
It genuinely does have an impact. Many of the answers in the previous surveys became the templates for specific additions, features and new content. People voted for a 12 v 12 mini-game two years ago, and that was what we made for the next mini-game. People wanted more solo instances, those arrived as well. Last year's feedback also helped shape the recent raids, the dynamic instances, the changes to the progression in Khitai, the upcoming multiple specification system, and the order in which the class changes were looked at. It helped to refine the free to play offer, and helped us with a lot of the prioritisation we have to do all the time.
Read the full letter on the Age of Conan site.