Age of Conan Game Director Craig Morrison has written his first letter of 2010 to the game's community, and it takes a broad look at some upcoming updates that Funcom has in store for the MMO. He quickly confirms that Update 1.06 is almost ready to go live and then jumps right into information on the Rise of the Godslayer expansion and beyond.

Morrison says that players should expect more expansion details to be revealed throughout February and March. Once Rise of the Godslayer has launched, the next update will focus on PvP: "We have been working on some adjustments to improve the stability of the existing massive siege gameplay alongside developing some new PVP systems."

For more details, check out Morrison's full letter after the jump.

This month’s letter has been both easy and hard to put together.

We are very busy at the moment preparing a lot of exciting updates, the expansion and one or two things in the ‘what comes next category’ and finding the time, and something ‘new’ for the avid forum watchers has been a challenge. We try with these letters to both sum up the recent activity and coming updates and to include some new information and plans, but on this occasion, there is so much out there with the updates and expansion that I’m going to be going over the exciting plans for the next couple of months.

1.06 Inbound

Update 1.06 is getting its final tweaks and adjustments prior to going out to the live servers. It has been great to see the positive reaction to the update on the test servers and all the feedback has been much appreciated.

With Guild Renown, Tier three raiding (including the new raid token system) and the major revamp for assassins there is a lot of great new content and features in 1.06 that we are really looking forward to seeing on the live servers.

The release articles span many pages of text even before the team has produced the final update notes themselves. Giving you all more interesting and enjoyable goals for your gameplay time has been our major target with this update and I think that we are very close to having achieved that. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the rankings systems develop and the competition that ensues as well seeing players enjoying the new content.

Expansion Progress and Reveals

The expansion preparations are also in full sing now. More players have now been invited to the beta process and we are also getting a lot of very good feedback there. The team is hard at work on the quest progression and finishing up the final playfields internally.

As we get closer to launch we are also starting to release much more information from the expansion alongside some great new videos and screenshots. We have already revealed the Chosain Province, and by the time you read this, Northern Grasslands playfields as well as shown off some of the great new factional armors. We are busily preparing even more updates with the other playfields, mounts and the new alternate advancement system all on the agenda.

I am very proud of what the team has managed to accomplish so far, and as we draw into the final stages of the expansion development we are really pushing to provide a lot of fun and interesting new content for you all in the lands of Khitai. The scale and scope of the new playfields is working well and the content itself is starting to shape up throughout the beta process.

So keep your eyes peeled for more reveals and updates about Rise of the Godslayer over the coming days, weeks throughout February and March as you get to look deeper into what is in store for you in Khitai.

PVP Improvements and updates

One area that we will be focusing on in the update following the expansion is the PVP side of things. We have been working on some adjustments to improve the stability of the existing massive siege gameplay alongside developing some new PVP systems.  This is an area that we want to develop further and will be the next focus for us as we get to the final stages of the expansion production.

We are also planning some very promising optimizations for the siege gameplay. I am writing this letter just a little too early to give a definite result, but so far, the testing on the test servers has been positive and lead to some very promising results. The players involved have been able to experience a pretty smooth experience and we are hopeful that these changes will be able to be rolled out to the live servers in the very near future.

In terms of new content we are using the extra available testing time on the test server to put the first iteration of the new Border Kingdoms PVP shrines through its paces. Make sure you check out the test server and its forums if you are interested in learning more about this new upcoming feature. We have been greatly encouraged by the feedback so far and will be working alongside the expansion work to prepare this feature for the live servers at the earliest opportunity.

In Closing

So there you have it, there is a lot of stuff in our immediate future. The size of the new features and amount of new content that is being prepared is both exciting and scary for me as we work with the schedules to make sure you all get your hands on it as soon as we can make it ready.

It is an exciting year ahead for Age of Conan and I am really looking forward to seeing where the journey takes us!

See you in Hyboria!