Norwegian developer Funcom revealed the first expansion pack for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, called Rise of the Godslayer on GamesCom 2009. The expansion is based on the Robert E. Howard’s novel “The Tower of the Elephant” and introduces a new Conan storyline, set in the Empire of Khitai, based on the ancient versions of China and Korea.

Khitai is the Orient, the eastern part of Asia. The players are starting at the Gateway to Khitai, this is an area targeted towards the players between levels 20 and 40. From the first step you take on those lands, it is clear that the developers wanted to give the players the sense of exploration. You’ll be doing just that - exploring this mystical, strange, new continent that should feel very alien to the player. The people from the kingdom of Conan are not familiar with Khitai. The new playfield is vast and open, with much more places to explore compared to the original game. The player will get very a sense of progression exploring this new place, new people and culture.



You might ask yourselves the question “Why, the first expansion of Conan is called Rise of the Godslayer?” First of all, Khitai is not the peaceful and quiet place it used to be. Currently the civilization there is in decline, torn by factional warfare and threatened by a mysterious evil force. Those territories were protected by that evil for over a millennium by a local god, but that god was killed by Conan 25 years ago. These events are part of Howard’s novel The Tower of the Elephant and are leading to the events of the expansion. As you can guess, the Empire of Khitai is in decay because of Conan’s actions 25 years ago, so now the local people do not like him that much as well as the people that are coming to Khitai from Connan’s kingdom.

Rise of the Godslayer will be focused mainly on PvE content – quests, dungeons, exploration, etc. Even though we won’t see the level cap rising, Funcom have prepared a plenty of new opportunities for the players to further develop their beloved characters. For example, there will be alternate advancement points, which can be spent on new skills and abilities, many of which with an Asian style theme (martial arts being a notable example). We will see a new offline time-based skill-training system (EVE Online, anyone?), which will help you learn more skills and advance to new abilities that are more powerful. We assume that behind this decision lays the idea to allow the players to take on more roles of each class. So, don’t worry, if you have a level 80 character, you will gain the strength needed to take the new enemies, dungeons (currently there is information only for a temple called Pillars of Heaven) and tough bosses. What about the exploration part? We don’t know yet how much new zones we’ll see, but Funcom are clear about one thing - Rise of the Godslayer will introduce vaster areas, full with life and hundreds of new quests that will give the player dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay time.



The expansion introduces two new mounts as well – a tiger and a wolf, which Funcom hasn’t shown yet. The interesting thing here is that instead of being bought from a NPC, these new mounts will have to be earned by the player. First of all, the player needs to become a part of a cult, and execute several of its strange rituals. Then he must fight with a tiger or a wolf mother using his bare hands, with no armor on. After that, if he’s still alive, he’ll be rewarded a cub, which he can start training immediately. The player will have to teach the little fluffy ball how to hunt, how to kill enemies, how to level up, etc. At some point the player will be given the choice whether he’ll use the cub as a pet or as a mount. If he decides to turn it into a mount, the tiger for instance will grant you the ability to move stealthily through the world.

There won’t be any new PvP content in Rise of the Godslayer. This kind of content will be added as a part of the live updates in the months throughout next year.

We will continue this article with a not so short interview with the game Director and Executive Producer - Craig Morrison on the problems of the original game, what part of them are now fixed, how is the company planning on attracting new player base, and how are they planning to bring back the players that quit the game. Also, there is a very interesting discussion about a possible Dreamfall (The Longest Journey) sequel and the future of Funcom as a whole…



UGDB.com: In your personal opinion, what were the main problems of the original game Hyborian Adventures, and what part of them you’ve managed to fix through patches?

Craig Morrison: We’ve been working very, very hard on the game from over a year already. When the game has been launched, we sat down and went throughout all the issues, which the players pointed out after the game’s release. It’s not a hidden fact that we had a lot of players which tried the game, and did not like it. So we’ve gathered the player’s feedback and then the team started to work tremendously hard to resolve all of these weak points of Hyborian Adventures. First of all, we’ve managed to resolve the technical issues very fast. Then we addressed things like adding a PvP system in the game and a structure based on PvP gameplay – we’ve made this last autumn. Then we started to look at things like the gaps in the content the people complained about – in the level 50 area, there were many, many hours of content, and we’ve made lots of improvements there. Then we addressed the level 70 range, we added new dungeons like the Amphitheater of Karutonia, we introduced a revamp of our RPG system, brand new items, abilities, new statistics, etc. So, we’ve spent more than a year improving the live product, and we will continue to do so.

The expansion on the other hand - Rise of the Godslayer is about adding completely new content, lots of new things for the players to do, lots of new stories to be experienced. As a whole we are taking the game in a slightly new playfield design, because we wanted to put a much more playable space in the same kind of areas in the future. We’ve created much more stunning visuals and sweeping new views. So, the expansion is the result of what people have liked in the original game and focusing on the little things, and details too.

UGDB: How do you plan to bring back the players that already quit the game, and how are you going to attract new players?

CM: If you asked a lot of people 9 months ago, they would say: “Oh, these guys are dead! They are not going to make it.” Well, we are still here. And we are very proud of what we’ve done in the last year and so.

Right now, we have two separate teams – one working on the expansion, and one which is working on the live game. In the next few months we will introduce a brand new renowned system to the guilds, lots of new goals and objectives, too. Guilds will be ranked and rankings will be visible in the game. These features will add more competition between guilds. We have tier 3 raiding in Thoth-Amons Stronghold coming to the live game, a brand new level 80 instance which will come in the next update cycle. So the original game is expanding and improving all the time and it’s more likeable place for both the new players, and the old players. And then comes the expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, which is pretty much the evolution of creating content, because as we go on, we are becoming better and better in using our tools, telling the new story, creating new content and systems. And this is the reason to introduce the first expansion - we are feeling ready to do it. We are feeling that it’s time for our player base to start growing in numbers again.



UGDB: Can we expect the new mounts to be customizable?

CM: We have a couple of different skins for them, brown-white, wolf-black, and some traditional colors. The customization is in terms of different skins, not in items which can be equipped, or presenting any new system here.

UGDB: When you are planning to release Rise of the Godslayer?

CM: We haven’t set a date yet, because first of all we want to test the new content. Once we are done with the testing process, we can start to talk about release dates.

UGDB: So, we are talking about a beta version here, right? Will there be an open beta?

CM: At this point, I am not so sure that we will make an open beta, but we will start doing a closed beta for sure. We have a very active testing community on our live test servers. We are very much relying on those people for good feedback - we are using them to test the live updates right now. And those people will be the principal base for the closed beta testing.

UGDB: Is there going to be only a retail version of the expansion, or you are going to distribute it digitally as well?

CM: Most of our releases now are getting both retail and digital distribution. So you can expect the same for Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer.



UGDB: By the way, what is going on with the Dreamfall: The Longest Journey sequel?

CM: *laughs* Right now, the team behind TLJ is working on our other MMO game The Secret World. We can say that the story for the Dreamfall sequel is ready, but we cannot say that it is in even in pre-production state. And yes, we know that this franchise is very well received both by critics and users, but right now we are focused on our three MMO games [Age of Conan, Anarchy Online and The Secret World]. We definitely had not forgotten the series, but you should have a lot of patience because, for example, the story of Anarchy Online was ready in 1996, but the game was released in 2001.

UGDB: So it seems that you are already a company based on developing only MMO games?

CM: No, no, we are making what makes sense. I mean, right now we are making online games, because this is the modern gaming. At this present age, everything is online distributed, and we have already imagined what if we can do the TLJ universe to be distributed online. So, we don’t say “no” to anything. When you are developing games, the ideas are coming from all sides, and if the idea is good, and we have the technology to do it, then we’ll start to turn it into game.



UGDB: With the release of The Secret World you’ll be supporting 3 MMO games. That’s requires a lot of people. Can we assume that Funcom’s team is growing rapidly?

CM: Yes, we are running two MMO games for over a year [Age of Conan and the currently in development title The Secret World] and we are running one from nine. In addition to our headquarters in Oslo, Norway we have also offices in North Carolina, USA, we have offices in Beijing, China, Switzerland too. I remember that when I started to work for Funcom five years ago, there were 50 people, and now I think that the company’s team is more than 300 people.

UGDB: We haven’t seen The Secret World on GamesCom. When are we going to see the next wave of information about your new IP?

CM: Actually, very, very soon, at Penny Arcade Expo 2009 (the Expo will be held in Seattle from the 4th to the 6th of September). Ragnar Tørnquist, the creative mind behind The Secret World as well as The Longest Journey and Dreamfall will be there to share all-new information with you.