14 DAY TRIAL // The Leipzig Games Convention is a great place to announce new stuff when it comes to MMOs, so it should be no surprise that Funcom, the people behind Age of Conan, have chosen this venue to talk a bit about their plans to expand the game in 2009. Apart from the usual balancing which is an ongoing process, it appears that there are plans for a fully fledged expansion for the Conan themed game.
Erling Ellingsen, product manager of the game, spoke to Gamespot and confirmed that "We are working on an expansion and that we are aiming for a release next year". It seems that, at this point in time, the developers are mainly trying to get an attention spike from the public, as they have only released artwork related to the expansion and are not ready to offer any other detail.
Based upon the images that are available, it is possible that both Hyrkania and Iranistan, which have an Eastern flavor in the world of Hyboria, might be added to the game. Khitai, which is more of a fantasy China faction, could also be in the works at Funcom.
The Funcom presentation also focused on how veteran players, who have leveled up substantially since the game was launched, would be getting new content soon, through some patches and, on the way, the team behind the game plans to spice up the players' experience by hosting special events within the game world.
Age of Conan was released in May for the PC and sold very well, with the Collector's Edition being all but sold out. There are some 400,000 people playing the game at this point and it is also being ported to the Xbox 360, although no release date is currently available.