Age of Conan Game Director Craig Morrison published his monthly letter to players today, and he chose to focus on the topic of community to demonstrate what players can do to help the development team and the game as a whole. He touched on the new recruitment system that launched with update 1.05.6 and unveiled the new Age of Conan Knowledge Base portal, which is "designed to put all the latest news and updates, and indeed previous ones, at your fingertips."

After stating that volunteers are needed to help the Age of Conan community, Morrison said the team is focused on getting the first builds of 1.06 ready for internal testing and is working on the new Guild Renown feature and the new Tier Three raid encounters. You can read the full letter after the jump.

For this month’s letter I wanted to talk a little about the community, what we are doing to help promote the game and what you can do to help! There have been lots of initiatives that have started over the last few weeks and days so I wanted to take the chance and go through the new programs and what they can offer you!

Recruit a Friend…

With the update today and the launch of the veteran rewards we are also starting a new recruit a friend program. Linked in with the great new value subscription rates you can earn yourself some nice rewards and even free playtime by getting your friends to join you in Hyboria! You can find all the details here.

Opinions, Information and you…

The more eagle eyed amongst you will also have noticed that we have been doing more player surveys and questionnaires. This is something that we will continue to do on an ongoing basis. As we start to think of what future developments we can plan for your opinion is always important.

Information as to what is in the works and where we are currently at is also an important element of ensuring the community is up to date with the current developments. You will have noticed that the community teams have now started giving regular weekly updates every Friday with an update from the production team as well as any other relevant information.

There is also a lot of information that is mentioned in forum replies and in interviews and other articles but they aren’t always the easiest to find. To this end we are launching a new community driven section of our websites that we are starting testing today. You can find it here  and discuss it on the forums here. This portal is designed to put all the latest news and updates, and indeed previous ones, at your fingertips in an easily searchable and categorized way. The community team is actively seeking your feedback on this new addition so make sure you check it out and let us know how you think it can be improved! 

As a previous community person myself I see this kind of interaction as vital to the development of the game. We won’t always agree with any given opinion, but finding out what different types of player desire in the game is always worth finding out!

Volunteer Program…

I also wanted to give a mention to the volunteers in the Followers of Asura. Community support and the volunteer systems have always been a key part of our games. Having gotten to work with some of the volunteers down the years, and even meet many of them at annual gatherings and conventions I cannot express enough how much I personally appreciate the fact that these dedicated players give up their own valuable time to help our communities and support them. They really do a wonderful job and add that extra dimension to the online experience when they are able to provide assistance to their fellow players.

The Followers are also recruiting at the moment for new volunteers. If you would like to volunteer a little of your time to help the Age of Conan community you can follow this link, where you can also find a lot more information about the program and volunteering.

What’s coming up…

Of course there is also the game updates to consider! Now that the 1.05 cycle is drawing to a close we shift our attention to the next major update cycle. We are currently hard at work getting the first builds of 1.06 ready for internal testing. Providing all goes well there we hope to deploy the update to the test servers for your feedback and opinions within a few weeks.

We are now focusing on the new Guild Renown feature and the new Tier Three raids encounters. We will be running several initiatives one the test servers during the testing to ensure you get your chance to have your say!

Internally we have a major focus on the expansion content, and the first closed beta testing phases are in progress now. We are currently working through the second and third iterations of the first three playfields and all the content that comes with them. There is a lot involved in the expansion and you’ll start to see more glimpses of it over the course of November, in fact those sneak peeks have already started with the first set of exclusive new screens released to MMORPG.com, keep your eyes out for more in November!

We are also planning on revealing much of the Korean version of Age of Conan in November with our partners at Neowiz culminating in the GStar show in Busan late in the month. I am really looking forward to getting to visit our gracious hosts again and to get to show more of the game to Korean gamers!

The Spooky Season…

Last but by no means least I hope you are all enjoying the new seasonal content. I really like when we get the opportunity to drop some things in there that are just for fun. The new items and rewards for content like this might not have epic stats or be an ultimate status symbol, but they are every bit as appealing, at least to me, so hopefully they will also raise a smile or two as you have some fun with the night of lost souls!

See you in haunted Hyboria this weekend!