At the Leipzig Game Convention, Age of Conan product manager Erling Ellingson and someone named Torgen (?) gave a demonstration of the upcoming new content for the game. I wasn't there, but MMO site Massively has linked to a German site hosting the video. So I watched it, which was like being there.

The video doesn't do much for me, as I'm pretty soured on Conan right now. In the past, the developers at Funcom did a great job updating Anarchy Online, which had a similarly rocky launch. But Anarchy Online had the advantage of being one of the only sci-fi themed MMOs. Age of Conan, on the other hand, competes directly with three tremendous games: Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, and, of course, World of Warcraft. It's going to have a heck of a time trying to catch up. But Funcom isn't giving up.

Read the details after the jump.

"A lot of the feedback we've been getting from players is that we need to add more content," says Ellingson. "Especially to the later parts of the game. And that's something we agree to completely and that's what we're doing right now."

This is pretty par for the course. An MMO comes out with the starting areas and the early stages in the best shape, and the players who race through the content to the endgame find that the developers weren't quite ready for them to get there. Updates ensue.

One of the new upper level areas is a slum, which is actually pretty light on the squalor. Then Ellingson goes to someplace called Shantytown, which he calls "the real real crappy part of [town]". He proceeds to show off an idyllic pond with a waterfall, which is pretty nice digs for someplace considered the "real real crappy part of [town]". Poor people in Age of Conan have it pretty easy.

Shantytown is full of guys in "high level raid epic gear" whacking away at each other. Ellingson explains that the quests here involve two warring gangs. You may or may not have to pick sides. But the way he mentions "moral choices" as if it's in italics is obviously a bullet point. He says that if you're tasked to take a finger from a rival gang member, you can instead just get a finger from a corpse. "Give the finger to the guy," he says. "And then you've made a moral choice."

Ellingson says there will be lots of climbing in the slums. "It's almost like Assassin's Creed," he notes. Dude, your game already tricked me once into wasting points on climbing skill. I'm not falling for that one again.

He jumps into a retooled dungeon with added traps. "Some of the feedback from the players is that we need to make the dungeons even more interesting," he says. Look! Fire is blocking his way! He and Torgen (?) stand on convenient pressure plates that turn off the fire. "It's about team work," he observes, shooting an arrow at a bright eyeball that turns off an unkillable snake. I didn't make any of that up.

"One of the sources we draw inspiration from is movies. One of the biggest trap movies is Indiana Jones. In this area right here, we've borrowed a little bit from Indiana Jones, as you'll see." To exactly no one's surprise, a giant boulder comes rolling down the hall. He steps into a convenient alcove along the side of the hallway. It's not much of a trap that's thwarted by a simple sidestep.

"We wanted to revamp the boss encounters," Ellingson says. "We wanted to borrow a little bit from World of Warcraft." While Torgen (?) tanks a boss, robed fanatics step up to a deep well and then throw themselves in. Their souls rise from the well and heal the boss. You have to figure this out and intercept the fanatics. It's the only bit in the demo that makes me think I'd like to play Age of Conan again. The feeling passes.

The demonstration concludes with a long look at Ymir's Pass, where a chained up demigod is causing earthquakes. There's also something about a chick with two frost giant brothers. The famous Wheel of Pain from the Conan movies is here. Then Ellingson approaches Keaira, who he calls the game's cover girl.

"She had a full page in Playboy," he announces proudly. Frankly, I consider that a terrible selling point for a game. Keaira makes some comment about her own "assets". She then promotes the game itself. Ha ha. "The gaming company probably consists of 98% males, so this is what happens, you know."

Finally, Ellingson briefly mentions the PvP consequence system. This means players who kill other players of considerably lower levels will be tagged criminals. City guards will attack criminals. Anyone who trades with or groups with a criminal will pick up the criminal tag. Anyone who kills a criminal gets special loot. It's an intriguing system that, like the rest of its PvP features, should have been in Age of Conan when it launched. "People have been waiting for the PvP update for a long time," he says. "And, yes, we are taking our time, but we're doing that because we want it to be as perfect as possible."

All of this will be added into the game free of charge. Well, free of any additional charge after the subscription fee. There's also an announced paid expansion sometime next year, but the only info available is concept art of someone in a Persian immortal mask. Check it out:

I wish Funcom the best, but this really shows the limits of the license. Their hook to get players into Age of Conan next year is some fantasy version of the Persians? Oh dear.