If you’re one of the four people who still play Age of Conan and you’ve been anxiously awaiting the DX10 graphics (you know, the ones they say the game has on the back of the box since launch but never quite made the cut?) then good news! In the next major update you’ll (probably) get DX10 graphics!
In his November letter to the community, Age of Conan Game Director Craig Morrison revealed that with the new PVP system and Ymir's Pass now in place, in the next major AoC update Funcom plans on adding the highly-desired DirectX 10 graphics.
“We are now preparing to take the DirectX 10 version of the game from our internal testing servers out to the public test servers, so you can see it for yourselves,” he said. “Since the outset we have been determined that the new DirectX 10 functionality would not just be a ‘gimmick’ addition to the game and would add visual quality to the game, we feel that the version we are preparing now for testing does achieve this and in a way that will find the right balance between visuals and performance.”
There’s no word yet on when this next major update might be, but my guess would be sometime before Christmas. That would match some of their past update schedules, and also give them a critical update in time for Christmas in hopes of saving the dying Age of Conan by growing the number of active subscribers.
Since its launch, subscribers to the once-super-hyped game have plummeted like the US economy. In their latest Q3 2008 reports, Funcom’s main goal is to increase subscriber longevity, and bring back those who failed to lengthen their subscriptions after the first month.
While I admit the game has made tremendous strides since Craig Morrison took over in September, I can’t help but feel it’s too little, too late. Age of Conan experienced a rocky start far worse than many other MMOs; content was unfinished, bugs were aplenty, PVP was broken, and features hyped on the back of the box STILL aren’t in the game seven months later. With less than 5% of the original subscribers still playing according to the reports, I’ll be amazed if Funcom can turn the ship around and make AoC a contender again -– especially with other games like WAR and WotLK now out on the market in full force.
In the meantime, all I can do is hope that Funcom's next MMO, The Secret World, will have someone as enthusiastic about the product and as community minded as Craig in charge. And that they can, you know, do the whole “Let’s launch a working game people can have fun with!” thing for once.
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