Age of Sorcery Chapter 2 Developer Stream
November 8, 2022
I am filling in for Multigun this time around. Disclaimer: This is a recap of the stream as I heard it for reading convenience. If any discrepancy between this recap and the video occurs, the devstream is the final word. I do not represent Funcom in any official capacity.
On or about December 3, 2022, Age of Sorcery Chapter 2 will be released to Live (currently in Testlive as of Nov. 8) and the following is a summary of the content of the Funcom Developer Stream that took place on Nov. 8. The following topics were described with question and answer throughout the stream (some with timestamps for when they were discussed from the official Youtube video when relevant in parentheses).
The devstream can be viewed here: Conan Exiles: FIRST LOOK at Chapter 2! - YouTube
The DevStream consisted of Dennis and Andy on screen with a disembodied Nicole in the background (who made a brief appearance at the end so we know she has not been disfigured). Gameplay was demonstrated but it was stated by Dennis that it was from an internal build and so could be subject to change.
Topics Covered
- Story/Game Lore
- Encounters
- Ancient Obolus
- Other New Features
- New Items
- Bazaar and Battlepass
- Devkit
- Q&A with Eradicati0n
- Chapter 3 Comments
- General Q&A (subjects not already covered)
Story
Chapter 2 centers around Mek-Kamoses and his desire to harness sorcery to, in Dennis’s words, “get out of here.” In this chapter, players will hunt sorcerers and return their skulls or unconscious forms to the minions of Mek-Kamoses to that end. (2:21) Dennis also mentioned that he has become very involved in creating the story for the game and is getting immersed in the game lore. This is reflected in the way from this point on, the story will be told to the player, rather than something more rhetorical as has been the case in chapter 1.
Encounters
The new encounter system is geared around the new story in that scattered about the maps (Exiled Lands and Siptah) in several locations per map, there will be new camps that are constructed in existing no build zones where players can turn in skulls or unconscious bodies of sorcerers. The unconscious bodies of sorcerers will be worth more to the traders than the skulls. The new encounters are a rebranding of the events to avoid confusion between the encounter system and when Funcom hosts player “events” (like bonus xp, the Yogtober event, building contests, etc). In addition to the old encounters, there will be new encounters called Witch Hunts that involve a more powerful sorcerer. The skull of a more powerful sorcerer will be worth more than the skull or body of a non-Witch Hunt sorcerer. The Witch Hunts are thematically different than the other encounters (Dennis and Andy demonstrated one with large briars/thickets surrounding the sorcerer). In exhange for the skulls and bodies, the traders will offer rewards in the form of Ancient Obolus that can be used to purchase items from the traders (more on that in the next section). The examples given were weapons and armors, with one of the armors being the Mad Prophet armor set, which is a CE version of the Thugra Khotan armor from the Age of Conan: Onslaught event. As an aside, Dennis mentioned that while the Mad Prophet set may look like it was an easy port from Age of Conan(AoC), the AoC engine is significantly older so old sets like this must be recreated and are not simply a port from the old game. It was also clarified due to an audience question that being a sorcerer does not inhibit a player from interacting with the Witch Hunt encounters, the other encounters and the traders.
Older events are expected to move forward into subsequent chapters and ages as long as they fit within the theme of a given chapter or age. The traders will not extend beyond chapter 2 because there will be no story reason for them to be there. Dennis also mentioned that in chapter 3, encounters will be “shotgun blast” into the map and appear all over, but they will check for the landclaim at the attempted spawn location. If there is player landclaim at that location, the encounter will simply spawn somewhere else where there is no player landclaim. Encounters will also continue to not be moddable, but Dennis did say that it is not terribly difficult for a modder to create their own encounter system such as has been done on the Savage Wilds custom map. The reason they are not moddable is that there are security risks in the way the encounters are coded that prohibit their inclusion in the devkit. Encounters will also continue to be able to be disabled by a server admin in the server settings.
A sample trading post on Siptah
Ancient Obolus
The reward for returning heads and bodies of sorcerers will be in the form of Ancient Obolus that will be used to purchase other in game items as mentioned before. Ancient Obolus are completely independent from Crom Coins and are not monetized. They will also be spawnable by server admins for use however they choose (also by implication, the items purchased using the Ancient Obolus are admin spawnable). Ancient Obolus will also be accessible via the devkit so that they can be included in mods. Dennis also mentioned that Ancient Obolus will be wiped between chapters from character inventories, even though the existence of Ancient Obolus will continue throughout future chapters. Another use for Ancient Obolus that Dennis highlighted was that they can be used to purchase Tier 4 converted thralls from the traders.
Other New Features
There will be new voice acting incorporated into the game. Dennis was particularly proud to announce that the voice actor of Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat 11 contributed to chapter 2. The new voice acting should give a more immersive way of engaging with the story.
Another change is with respect to pets. Pets had generic attacks that were unbalanced and caused the fighting effectiveness of various pets to be either too powerful (e.g. cats) or too weak (e.g. gorillas and scorpions). With the exception of gorillas and scorpions, pets in chapter 2 will be heavily nerfed as they recalibrate their in game balance. The intent of the nerf is to rebaseline pets which at first will make them quite weak, but over time, they will be retuned to bring their power level up to what is appropriate. Pets will never be as powerful as thralls even after retuning, but they will not be as weak in the future as they are upon release of chapter 2. They are intentionally weaker than thralls to reflect the ease of picking them up and taming them vs thralls. Gorillas and scorpions however are the exception because they were so bad, Dennis and the team felt they needed to be addressed immediately. These changes were necessary because as they adjusted thrall power, there wasn’t an independent knob in place to control pets. The changes being made address this so they can be fine tuned independently. Dennis mentioned that making pets level faster is being considered. Pets are a work in progress.
Pet Kittehs! There are now normal sized cats roaming about the map. They are hairless stygian cats that can be picked up and tamed. Protect your tuna. No word yet on whether you will ever be able to pet them. A fancy version of the cat can be acquired thru the battlepass/bazaar.
New Items
The following items were highlighted during the stream. Most are expected to be part of the battlepass/bazaar:
-
New armor sets. Beyond the Mad Prophet set, 4 more were displayed. New armor will be available via the battlepass/bazaar/in-game rewards. The purple set was intended to be for Mek-Kamoses but he won’t be wearing it in Chapter 2 due to a technical issue that they hope to have corrected for Chapter 3. The technical issue prevents the placing of dlc items on in game NPCs.
The Mad Prophet armor set is in the center. -
Hedge mazes. These are not lockable building pieces but placeables that can be organized into whatever shape you want.
-
Stormglass expansion. New building pieces will be available that expand on the existing Stormglass building set. It features large column corners that can be formed into a larger 2x2 pillar for grander structures. Also as part of the Stormglass set, larger doors were shown as well as buttress pieces. A sorcerous mirror and illusionist painting was also shown in the video. The painting displays the character as more corrupted as the player gets closer.
-
Wall ivy. Wall ivy was shown creeping up the walls of the stormglass set and it will be available. Its been a long requested feature.
-
An new animal “pen” was featured. It was not clear if it was purely decorative or was a functioning pen (appeared to be decorative as it could be walked into with an cat and dog inside).
-
Prisoner decorations. A bone box was shown with a prisoner inside. Unclear if the prisoner was purely decorative or if it was a captured thrall.
-
Food stalls and decorations. An outdoor foodstall was shown with boxes of fruite and vegetables and what looked like hanging garlic and some other suspended vegetables.
Bazaar and Battlepass
The issue of bazaar prices was raised and Dennis said that they will be looking at the bazaar pricing from chapter to chapter and making adjustments, based on what content the players are most interacting with and what they are not interacting with. He again said that they don’t expect to get it right on the first try but it is an iterative process that they are committed to, much like balance passes to the game. Over time they expect it to hit the sweet spot.
Dennis also highlighted the new paperdoll (a moving figure of your character, much like the image of your character in your inventory) animations in the bazaar and battlepass, that will show the player what an armor will look like when worn on their charater, what a given emote will look like when executed, and in the future (soon after Chapter 2 is released) what a given warpaint will look like. The paperdoll can be rotated around to get various views of the character wearing or doing whatever is relevant.
Currently thru the 21st of November, battlepass experience is being boosted in two ways. One is by permanently increasing the base experience for a given challenge, and they are also increasing the multiplier during this time period. This is because from the data that they collect, people are not progressing as fast thru the battlepass as they hoped and they want to make it easy to complete so that everyone can fully engage with the story and playing the game without feeling like they are doing meaningless chores. Dennis mentioned that some of the challenges will be tied to rewards for encounters so that the challenges more effectively engage the players with the new content.
Andy asked about a time remaining counter for the battlepass and Dennis confirmed that this is something that they will include and should be fixed in the near future.
Edit: Funcom followed up with me to note the time remaining counter will always be updated after the stream as the time remaining counter is dependent on the exact release date, which doesn’t firm up until the time of the devstream.
A question from the audience was about the relationship between challenges for the battlepass and the player progression, to make sure they are more appropriate (it doesn’t make sense to ask a level 1 player to defeat the Kinscourge for example). Dennis said there will be updates to challenges along these lines in chapter 2 and they can be updated on the fly without the need for a formal game patch. They are going to have challenges for the chapters that align with what a player who is a given level should be doing in a way that makes more sense.
There are no plans currently to support cross purchase between platforms. They want to make it as easy to get into the game as possible, so they have avoided requiring creation of master accounts for registration. They don’t believe there are a lot of players that play on multiple platforms, so it has not been a priority. It’s not impossible, but it is not something that the game is designed to do at this time.
They are working on the issue of regional pricing. They had no further comment they could provide at this time.
Devkit
In the stream, it was announced that the new devkit was to be released on or around the 15th of November. Due to a last minute technical issue at the time of writing this summary, the date has been pushed back a day to ensure a stable build (per the modders discord statement). This will still be in line with giving modders about 3 weeks of prior time with the devkit before the December 3rd planned release of Chapter 2. See the modders discord for up to date information.
Dennis also elaborated on the fact that the devkit is actually a completely different development that goes in parallel with large releases, so they are not always concurrent.
Q&A with Eradicati0n
They were joined remotely by Eradicati0n during the devstream(50:30). Eradicati0n is a Content Creator on Youtube that focus on building on pvp and pve and gives content updates and covers game lore. The following is a paraphrased summary of what they discussed, E being Eradicati0n and D being Dennnis.
- (52:22) E: In regards to the Mad Prophet set and the headhunter encounters, will that be rolled forward in the future similar to Grave Matters? D: They will keep the things they have made (like the Skelos armor) and inject them into the game thru a different route (drops, recipes, ect).
- (53:30) E: I assume there is no daily limit on the headhunter events, that you can do them as often as you want to? D: Yes. Because it isn’t monetized, there isn’t a limit.
- (53:57) E: Are the witch hunts all around the same difficulty, or are some intended to be more challenging? D: They are roughly around the same difficulty, but it varies a little based on geography the way its always harder on the North side of the Exiled Lands map. They are not intended to be extremely difficult. Iron weapons with some player skill should be able to defeat them. Dennis expanded on how the sorcerer’s mobs are stronger than the sorcerer themselves, which is by design as the sorcerers are weaker and more frail, similar to how focusing on followers by the player thru authority results in a physically weaker character by comparison to a strength focused barbarian.
- (55:40) Eradicati0n observes how “present” the story is, and wonders if that will continue in the future. Dennis said in chapter 1 they were mostly focused on the mechanics of sorcery, so the story wasn’t as elaborate as it will be going forward. The story will escalate as each age goes thru its chapters.
- (57:34) E: Are there more story based PVE dungeons in the works to go along with the story? D: Its something they have thought about. Dungeons are high on their list of things to do, but they are also very expensive to make. Dennis said if you see a Dungeon come in, it will likely be at the beginning of an Age. It could happen, it might not. He hints that they could use the upper right corner of the Exiled Lands map to put more dungeons as there is some real estate that could be used. Big concern though is consoles and their memory capacity.
- (1:00:25) E: Are there going to be more building sets that augment existing sets? D: Yes, there will be both new building sets and augments to existing sets. Augmenting existing building sets is also a time saver as they already have the concept established and they can just expand on it.
- (1:02:28) E: Vague storyline question regarding the ring. D: It won’t stay the way it is.
- (1:04:00) Eradicati0n interview ends
Chapter 3 Comments
Dennis mentioned that Chapter 3 will be an escalation of the story that has progressed in chapters 1 and 2. He also mentioned that he has been working on chapter 3 for 6 months already (with a short back and forth with Andy about how of course this is how it happens because they can’t just record voice overs and dialogue right before release).
General Q&A for Topics Not Already Covered
The following topics were also interspersed throughout the stream as they either arose in chat or occured to either Andy or Dennis’s fertile neurons. Time stamp for a given question is given at the start of the subject.
(19:27) Andy is on fire.
(20:44) Dennis reiterates that they are trying to stick to 91 days between chapters. It’s important for consistency.
(29:30) They discuss the 800 lines of fixes that are in the current testlive release. They encourage people to check them in the patchnotes that have been posted on the forum by Ignasis.
(30:10) Question about Character Transfer and when will they be available again. Dennis has no new information about when they will return and they know a lot of people want it, and it is on their radar.
(37:40) A shoutout is given to the artists. Vebjorn was a special shoutout as he is responsible for all things with bumholes.
(43:10) Dennis gets misty on thralls he has lost. He feels our pain.
(43:36) No plans to add new spells in Chapter 2. Dennis doesn’t believe you will see any new spells in chapter 3 either, but there will be new spells in the future. He said it is highly probable there will be new spells in the second Age, not necessarily sorcery themed.
(47:43) “Performance optimization when?” Answer: Literally always. They are always looking for ways to improve performance.
(48:30) Andy mucks up the audio… general mayhem.
(1:05:45) Question from audience about a sorcery themed dungeon. It will have to be timed right. It will have to be worked into the story somehow.
(1:08:05) Yellow lotus bug. Changes are coming to yellow lotus, not immediately in chapter 2. Yellow lotus should not erase sorcery feats in chapter 2, but Dennis needs to check. Its got a complicated history.
(1:08:48) Dyable saddles? He says that they can. Possible but a lot of work and rework to go back and redo existing saddles.
(1:09:20) Acheronian Legate Primus Armor. It will be available, but Dennis does not have the details.
(1:10:21) Snake pets. Making them follow is easy, but combat with snakes is tricky because you have to look down to hit a snake, which can create unfavorable gameplay with NPCs. It would have to be a big snake.
(1:11:38) Character generation features from encounter rewards (adding new haircuts and stuff). They haven’t done it yet because it would break a lot of mods. They would need to address some technical issues in the background to make it more modder friendly so anyone could add what they want and as they add new haircuts, faces etc, it wouldn’t break existing mods.
(1:12:00) Will there be a back button for sorcery casting instead of a full cancel? The reason is that sorcery has vocals involved that are going to be included in chapter 2. The power comes from the words you are speaking so simply cancelling back to the prior menu wouldn’t fit. There are male and female voices being added. Casting will also be a bit faster. It will be about 1/3 faster.
(1:16:55) They are aware that armor and weapons can be placed on zombies and it should be fixed in chapter 2. It may not be in the first update, but should be soon after.
But I got Vebjorn right!
