Age of Conan expanding in '09

Funcom tells Leipzig audience that it is "aiming" to release the first retail add-on to its popular fantasy MMORPG sometime next year; first teaser art raises possibility of Khitai addition.

Age of Conan Expansion (Working Title)

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Today at the Leipzig Games Convention, Norwegian developer Funcom showed off some new content updates for the Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. As outlined in GameSpot's hot-off-the-presses impressions, the presentation covered several new areas that will soon be available to higher-level characters in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

While interesting, the presentation was overshadowed by another announcement. Almost casually, Funcom reps on hand revealed the first Age of Conan expansion pack is currently in the works for a tentative 2009 release.

"We are working on an expansion and that we are aiming for a release next year," Age of Conan product manager Erling Ellingsen told GameSpot. (Emphasis in the original.) "We have released the artwork, which I'm sure you have seen, but we are not ready to reveal any other information at this point. We just want to get the speculation going at this point!"

The teaser art Ellingsen mentions (pictured) shows a masked warrior not unlike the Persian Immortals from the film 300. In the atlas of the Hyborian Age, the fantasy realm Age of Conan is set in, author Robert E. Howard created two realms based on ancient Persia: Hyrkania and Iranistan. However, the presence of pagodas, dragon motifs, Eastern weapons, and jade-like armor makes Khitai, Howard's take on the China of antiquity, a more likely suspect.

For more on Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, read GameSpot's full review of the game, which currently boasts over 400,000 subscribers. Released in May for the PC, the title is still in the "early stages" of being ported to the Xbox 360.

113 Comments

  • Arern

    Posted Jul 22, 2009 3:19 am PT

    This would give Age of Conan the boost they need. They have to bring it out fast.

  • IncipitOmega

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 12:14 am PT

    The game is very good now,quite polished..most of the bugs are gone,the game has a lot of new things in the MMO genre.I will definitely get this expansion...

  • Julenissen55

    Posted Jan 8, 2009 6:22 am PT

    i hope the entire expansion is one huge polish of the original, cuz the game needs it badly....

  • Knoar

    Posted Oct 20, 2008 5:33 pm PT

    lol... aoc is so beyond help it's pitiful.

  • Baldur3272

    Posted Sep 17, 2008 12:22 pm PT

    conan is so awesome! All hail Crumb!!!!

  • Abs0Iute_Zer0

    Posted Sep 14, 2008 9:53 am PT

    Im looking forward to see the improvements

  • vortex_gw

    Posted Sep 10, 2008 11:33 am PT

    WAR has bad graphics. I'm not a graphics whore but WAR ist's just ugly. AoC has potential, I hope they fix the bad stuff in the game.

  • 69Kameleon69

    Posted Sep 4, 2008 5:47 pm PT

    I think WAR will outsell AoC, mainly due to fan base. The lore for WAR is way better than that of AoC. I just hope WAR keeps everything up to date as WOW does. Right now, WOW is still king but eventually a game has to come out to dethrone it.

  • invictuslemming

    Posted Aug 30, 2008 9:47 pm PT

    Too little too late in my opinion, AoC had some amasing features, the zones for one were absolutely beautiful, they did a phenominal job, same with low end content. The lack of polish and high level content killed the game for a lot of people though causing many to quit early.

    With warhammer on the horizon and wotlk only two months away I think funcom's going to have a difficult time drawing back players.

  • Elhan posted Aug 30, 2008 6:21 am PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    Elhan

    Posted Aug 30, 2008 6:21 am PT (hide)

    Warhammer has already dethroned Wow. Before it's even out.

  • ac1dwarrior

    Posted Aug 27, 2008 5:27 am PT

    well funcom really fails... They should fix the problems they have already, not throw out a xpac and create MORE problems.

    I am a AoC player myself.. I've had it since its launch and it is getting slightly, VERY slightly, better. But now they decide to tear there time away from the real problems by trying to distract you with more problems. I will probably be one of those people who will try to ride out the storm instead of bailing off the ship, why you may ask? because this game has the potential to overthrow WoW, or at least damage it.

    Now BRING ON THE FLAME!

  • gfile

    Posted Aug 26, 2008 10:52 am PT

    All hail to king Conan and Funcom, you just made my day...can`t wait for expansion

  • deesnutts25

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 5:17 pm PT

    @ThugNMe

    First off, WoW can be taken down by other games other than itself. Have you checked the sub count on WoW lately? I do believe they have lost a lot of subs due to people being pissed off that they are messing up the lore. War will not surpase WoW, I'll be surprised if it passes up AoC and keeps their numbers after release. War is due to have bugs and tech problems just like AoC when it releases. What you guys playing the beta fail to realize is, BETA IS NOT THE FULL GAME!!! Beta is just testing some things out for bugs, its not the whole game by any means. Once the beta is over and the actual game comes out, I'll browse the forums there and see how many people complain. I'm sure the number will be just as big if not bigger than AoC. WoW was not perfect on release, it was very far from it. It took blizz almost 2 years to really get WoW going to where it is now and most of you guys expect a new mmo to be just like WoW. Its not possible to releae a full mmo without having issues at the start, all mmo's have had issues when they were released and some have stood up to the test of time and players waiting around for fixes, and some haven't.

  • ThugNMe

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 2:36 pm PT

    @ LiontamerV

    LOL WoW will only be dethroned by WoW itself, AoC wont/cant EVER come close to the giant know as WoW, Only real competition WoW will get will be from WAR, which in my opinion is better then WoW. I played AoC for the first 3 months after release, and it leaves much to be desired.

  • aggelet

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 2:11 pm PT

    FAILCOM!

  • deesnutts25

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 1:54 pm PT

    @Social_D

    Yes, they were in game, but not accessable at launch, meaning, no end game content at launch. Patch 1.1 came out like 6 months after release. It was the big patch that introduced bg's and what not that added end game content to WoW. If you played WoW at launch, they day it came out until the patch, you know there was no end game at all. If i could log onto my account acreen and show when i first activated my account, you would see that it was way before the 1.1 patch that came out in Nov 2004.

    Also note that Ubrs and Lbrs were raid instances when they becamse accessable. Lbrs was a 10 man at first and Ubrs was a 40 man. Blizz noticed that the instances were way to easy that way and lowered the amount of people that were allowed in the instance at the same time.

  • Social_D

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 12:19 pm PT

    @deesnutts25

    At the original release of WoW, MC and Ony were already in the game. They were patched in with version 1.1, which was put out before the physical release of the game on 23 Nov 04.

    ref:
    http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.1
    http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/index.html?tag=result;title;1

  • valcrist09

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 12:16 pm PT

    and stop comparing new MMOs to wow at the start.. This is a different era. I am sick of restarting MMOS and it not even having the basic content it should have.. I am tired of waiting for years to get content it should of had with the game.. How can you expect players to go from nearly 4 years of definded and tweaked content in WoW to these newer MMOs that dont even have what they promise and just get delay after delay and show nothing for it.

  • valcrist09

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 12:13 pm PT

    lol this game wont even Phase WoW... All the highly anticpated MMOs were flops.. AOE lacked major content, and has way to many bugs.. Warhammer which i am in beta right now, is a horrible grind, worse graphics then wow and poor gameplay.. As of Now blizzard has no worries, with 11 million people, a new expansion that is adding way more content then BC... It cant be stopped until someone raises the bar and brings in something fresh.

  • LiontamerV

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 12:00 pm PT

    Good to see some MMO's finally trying to take down WoW's throne. I'm excited

  • hatefull

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 11:32 am PT

    what deesnutts25 stated are facts. but kids around here dont agree with facts (?) as they prefer being delusional in their little wow world

  • deesnutts25

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 10:30 am PT

    @Golbez_77

    Wasn't anti-social, and if you read forums, you would know, there was no end game for WoW at release. I played WoW at release and watched people quit due to no end game at all. All the places you mentioned were patched into the game a few months after release. The pvp in WoW at launch was, walk into pvp are aka taruen mill and get jumped, wash, rinse, repeate. There were no bg's.

    As far as War goes, The beta version of a game is not a full version. There is still more they will add before it releases. Thats why very few people had bad things to say about AoC during the beta testing, but when it released, after everything was thrown together then everyone had something bad to say. War will be the same way. WoW's fanbase picked up after the first year, after the end game and bg's were introduced. MC did not exsist at launch and you couldn't even go to EPL when the game launched either, so that gets rid of scholo, and Stratholm, Ony was not in game to fight, and ubrs/lbrs was nowhere to be seen either. I lvled to 60 with a guild and we ran instaces all the time. The whole mc, ubrs, lbrs area was still blocked off at launch and stayed that way for a few months. No mmo will be complete at launch, that is why the patch the hell out of it for the first couple of months. The patches are to iron out the bugs and tech issues, but funcom is trying to balance classes to please the player base that complains about getting killed in pvp. Stuff will happen in AoC just like it did in WoW. Just like the fact the next xpac for WoW is already in development since blizz plans on releaseing one every year at the same time. They said this a couple of years ago before TBC was released during E3. War will have an expansion to include the 3 classes and other content that was removed also. People are impatient these days and have to have it all when they want it. If you want that sort of thing, get a console where the games have an ending and are complete when released.

  • Toek

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 10:08 am PT

    Hopefully they will fix the constant OOM error that people (myself included) are having and will fix the quests that are broken. It's kind of depressing to hear talk of an expansion when there are still so many fubar issues they need to fix first.

  • NickAnguiano

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 10:07 am PT

    WoW did not have MC or even a lot of those early 10 mans like UBRS and junk. I remember the patch where those instances were put in. I wanna say Ony didn't exist either but I might be wrong about that. I do know that the a lot of those others weren't there though. I agree with deesnuts though that people expect these new MMOs to beat out WoW at release which is sorta an impossible thing to ask. WoW has like 3+ years worth of content now and a huge fan base. Age of conan and War are not gonna be better at release. They could be after patches to fix bugs, more content, etc.. but yeah.. WoW even sucked at release. lol im not really sure how it got a 10/10 or 9.5/10 on this site. i can't remember exactly what, but it was boring at first and it had a lot of problems. I personally am rooting for all the MMOs to be good because it'd be nice if they everyone started to take notice at what a popular genre of game it's becoming.

  • metalisticpain

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 8:34 am PT

    @deesnutts25

    I am in the Beta
    There WILL be BattleGrounds
    There WILL be RVR open World with meaningful objectives
    There WILL be PQ's
    There WILL be PVE

    I know there will be because its all already there. Sure its going to have tech issues, but IMO, for beta it is very very well done. I actually went in expecting more issues then i found.

  • joedellamorte

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 6:36 am PT

    The game is still in its infant stage, and there are still a few issues which need to be fixed, but the game is getting better every week, and eventually it will become a fantastic game -- quite possibly the very best. Give it a try.

  • Golbez_77

    Posted Aug 25, 2008 1:30 am PT

    I can't help but laugh at you deesnutts as your information about wow is very very wrong. At day 1 of the wow launch it had end game content which were strath, scholo, lbrs, ubrs, ony and mc. However MC was of course bugged pretty good but within 3 1/2 months of wow's release it was in a playable relatively bug free state. Second you could do 1-60 without grinding if you did most instances once, if you did no instances then you would likely see small 1-3 level gaps in the late 40s and 50s where you needed to grind or of course you could just do an instance of 2. Thirdly the honor system came a couple months after release and introduced the best pvp WoW had, you obviously didn't participate in the many constant battles of which the most notable was the fight for south shore/tm.

    From the sounds of it you were very antisocial in the game which explains why there was "no" endgame content.

  • deesnutts25

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 9:24 pm PT

    @Beagle_san

    WoW was nowhere near superior game wise when it released. If you didn't play it the day it launched, then you can't compare. I played WoW at launch and quit after 3 months, then went back and tried it a year later. WoW had all sorts of bugs and no end game at all. The only pvp you seen in WoW at launch were in zones that allowed pvp. There were no battle grounds for at least 6 months into WoW release, and no end game content for about the same amount of time.

    War will be the same way. People think its going to be perfect when it releases and expect something like DAoC when it releases. War will be filled with bugs and tech issues just like all mmo's are when they release.

  • invictuslemming

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 8:22 pm PT

    Personally I think they should consider completing the content that's supposed to be in the game right now, before talking about selling an expansion pack.

  • ski_doo_

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 8:12 pm PT

    tha game is good, its just like all of the other mmo's content doesnt get put in all at once just little by little. i bet if u look at wow's forums when it just came out it would look just like aoc's forums enough said......

  • ZacherWol19

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 6:35 pm PT

    I actually play it and the bugs and it's doing good not to many bugs you guys need to give it a chance, because it has gotten better and i've played since release date and haven't quit because i love the real time combat and my machine can run it in high quality.
    People should give it another go

  • Beagle_san

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 5:34 pm PT

    It's still a game that should be in Beta testing, and they're talking expansion?!? And, yes, WoW was a far, far superior product when released. WoW's main problem were that they underestimated the demand for the game.

    Sure, an MMO is in an perpetually evolving state, but Funcom badly screwed the pooch by getting people to pay for a game that was unready for release.

    Gamespot badly overrated this game.

  • Hekynn

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 2:08 pm PT

    If ya cant play it then dont complain about it!!! I dont have any troubles with it with my gaming rig I bought back in april went from a P4 system to a Quad Core gaming rig.

  • 2bitSmOkEy posted Aug 24, 2008 12:13 pm PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    2bitSmOkEy

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 12:13 pm PT (hide)

    people still play this scam?

  • xfactor19990

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 11:51 am PT

    ya, i quit sad to say bugs galore, game ran like crap very sad

  • IXIWhistIXI posted Aug 24, 2008 9:21 am PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    IXIWhistIXI

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 9:21 am PT (hide)

    jknight...the other 600,000 quit the game within the first 3 months.
    It's a console mmorpg. If I were to play this game on xbox, I would think of it as a decent online game...but as a pc mmo, it's total trash.

  • jknight5422

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 9:16 am PT

    Only 400,000 subscribers? I recall it selling almost a million copies. Where's the other 600,000 members? I guess temporary play of online games is standard these days.

  • deesnutts25

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 8:59 am PT

    @zomglolcats

    Did you play WoW at launch? There was no end game. WoW had a lack of content as well at launch. It also had a lack of content during the mid 40's during lvling. WoW was also unbalanced and had plenty of bugs and some still exsist. Don't try to put WoW up on a pedistool and make it seem like its the best game out, because its not. TBC was in development for 2 years and development started shortly after WoW's release, but unlike blizz, funcom is actually telling its customers that an expansion is coming instead of reamaining tight lipped about it. WoW didn't have battle grounds like it does now when it released, it took them 6 months to put it in. WoW also had no end game, it took 6 months to get put in game also. Thats right, MC didn't always exsist and it took blizz some time to put it in the game, so no end game at all once you hit 60 when WoW released.

    As far as your comment on people leaving AoC, yea some have left, but lots of people left WoW in the begining also. Most people are playing WoW right now because they are waiting for other games to come out.

    Please don't compare WoW in its current state to AoC. WoW has been out for what almost 5 years now and blizz plans to release an expansion pack every year from now until WoW dies out. AoC has been out what 3 months, theres no way you can compare the games right now. AoC has a higher lvl cap, has end game raid instances, and had pvp battlegrounds in game at launch, however they are buggy, but its still there at launch. WoW had none of this and is releaseing more xpacs to get more money out of eveyone for things that should have been around on day 1. Oh and was far as WothLK goes, if you have ever played a Warcraft game, then you would know blizz is messing up the lore of the game. DK's were never alliance, they have always been horde. Just like paladins have always been alliance, not horde, so you talk about a carrot on a stick, look at blizz and what they are doing, don't look at a game that is still in its infant stages after launch.

  • zomglolcats

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 7:29 am PT

    My complaints have nothing to do with the performance of the game, it is with the game itself. Horribly unbalanced, bugs galore, lack of content in later levels. Just terrible. Say what you will about WoW, but it launched in a much better state with a ton of content. And now, the game has only been out for a couple months, but now Funcom is already announcing an expansion. I guess a carrot on a stick to keep people from leaving. Except that they already left.

  • unacomn

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 4:36 am PT

    Daam, there sure are a lot of crybabies around here. I used to play AoC on a PC that can bearly run Assassin's Creed. It was hard to play after the Scarlet Tortaje part, but it was fun. The PvP was just what I imagined that Hyboria would be like, no laws, only the will of man and the rule of the strongest. They will dumb it down a bit for the whiny **** ahem, seasoned WoW and lineage players, but it will still be fun. To those of you who say Age of Conan is bad, I suggest you should actually play it first. If my bathtub of a PC can runit all you "1337 g@m3rs" should be able to run it too, with your fancy PCI-E cards and DDR ram and dual core processors.

  • unacomn

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 4:35 am PT

    Daam, there sure are a lot of crybabies around here. I used to play AoC on a PC that can bearly run Assassin's Creed. It was hard to play after the Scarlet Tortaje part, but it was fun. The PvP was just what I imagined that Hyboria would be like, no laws, only the will of man and the rule of the strongest. They will dumb it down a bit for the whiny **** ahem, seasoned WoW and lineage players, but it will still be fun. To those of you who say Age of Conan is bad, I suggest you should actually play it first. If my bathtub of a PC can runit all you "1337 g@m3rs" should be able to run it too, with your fancy PCI-E cards and DDR ram and dual core processors.

  • renofury

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 3:23 am PT

    Note for those that have a good pc, and running vista 64. As u may read there many complaints on the game stability but if u have a decent pc, it never crashes on high with AA16. My systems is uses a q6600 cpu, 9800gx2 video card and 4 gig ram, nothing special

  • deesnutts25

    Posted Aug 23, 2008 10:35 pm PT

    I see lots of people complaining about how there will be an expanison for AoC in 09 and how they are releasing one too soon adn should wait longer. Well hate to inform people, but BC was in the works shorlty after WoW was released, hmmm kind of odd don't you think. Theres also an xpac in development for War also, so stop pointing fingers because AoC has an xpac coming out so soon. Look at War, they had to get rid of how many different classes to get the game out before WothLK? War will no be completely finished when it releases either. Tech probs and bugs, they will be found in War at release also, so its not going to be perfect. I do play AoC and its has gotten a little better, and a little worse at the same time. Just like WoW they are trying to balance classes and add more end game. I know when WoW release there was no end game content for lvl 60's and it had its fare share of bugs which they are still ironing out. I still find bugs and glitches in WoW to this day that have been there since day 1 and still have yet to be fixed.

    Those saying War will beat all or will be better than AoC thats your opinon and you can have it, but rememer AoC's beta had very few bugs also, but when they full version release, then all the bugs were spotted and reported. The same thing will happen in War, it will have a strong release and die down little by little due to bugs and tech problems.

    I'm not enocuraging people to play AoC, nor directing them away from it, but play the game first, then give opinons, don't just sit and say a game sucks or is bad because you read some forum entries and go along with it.

  • Bgrngod

    Posted Aug 23, 2008 9:22 pm PT

    "For those of you who cry about content this soon, maybe you shouldn't have powerleveled your characters to 80 in a week"

    You mean maybe they shouldn't have played the game then? Absolutely right.

  • hikari33

    Posted Aug 23, 2008 8:56 pm PT

    how is this news, obviously they are going to be expanding, the game wasnt even complete when it first came out

  • halosniper52

    Posted Aug 23, 2008 6:54 pm PT

    " IrishSJ23" Some of us do have jobs. But maybe have to pay for bills and S*** but that's not the point who cares about graphics I would rather have a game that can preform well. On a side note tho I do have a good compute but I'm saying for other ppl like a lot of my friends don't have good enough computers it sucks.

  • lazlo409

    Posted Aug 23, 2008 6:47 pm PT

    They should fix the game first before they work on an expansion.

  • halosniper52

    Posted Aug 23, 2008 6:47 pm PT

    All mmos should do what blizz does and make the system req vary low. I believe if aoc was lower on the system req it would be doing a lot better. i know all these ppl say there is so many problem with it but I never had any problems nothing too big that is. But get the game on low end pc F*** the graphics and it will do better I think.

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