A new land named Khitai is introduced in Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer. Khitai is a far Eastern themed land filled with a variety of oriental themed buildings. There are two ways to take your character to Khitai; one is to create a Khitan character which automatically enters the Gateway to Khitai after leaving Tortage. Non Khitan characters can enter Khitai by taking a boat from Khemi in Stygia. Khitai includes multiple new locations to level your character. Some of these locations are for lower level characters and others are for higher level characters. These include some well designed locations such as the Gateway to Khitai, Chosain, Kara Korum, and Paikang.
A wolf and tiger pet / mount are included in Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer. These animals are only obtainable through a long quest chain. Both the wolf and tiger can be kept as a combat pet or as a mount. The wolf allows players to snare any enemy in the vicinity of the player and detects stealth players, while the tiger allows players to stealth around the playfield.
A new faction system has been released with the expansion. This faction system brings new quests to the game which allow players to rise in rank for the faction of their choosing. Each faction offers vendors with a variety of rewards purchasable by the player. These rewards include armor, mounts and social pets. Faction armor worn by a player can distinguish what faction he or she is representing.
The alternate advancement system implemented in Rise of the Godslayer lets players above level 20 obtain new abilities, powers and attack combinations. Players can earn alternate advancement points through player versus player, player versus environment, and a combination of the two.
Feats and perks are the two types of purchasable abilities through the alternate advancement system. Feats are always available once learned, some are passive and some may be used in combat when the player chooses to do so. Perks are equipped on a perk bar that has limited space. Minor perks take up one slot while major perks take up two slots. Minor perks are useful while major perks can be extremely powerful. Minor and major perks allow a player to customize their character’s abilities and partially tweak the standard roles of each character class.
Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer brings the ability to gain levels and alternate advancement points while offline. These levels and alternate advancement points come at a significantly slower pace than they would if a player was actively playing the game. The offline leveling features is a welcome feature to casual gamers looking to develop their characters while not in the game. One stipulation of the offline leveling feature is it only works on characters level 30 or higher. Every four real time days grants a players account one offline level which he or she can allocate to any level 30 or higher character of their choosing.
The Direct X 10 graphics in Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer help make the game one of the most beautiful MMORPGs to date. Keep in mind a very powerful system is required to run all graphical options at maximum. The music introduced in Rise of the Godslayer is well done and adds a great touch to the expansion. Overall Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer is a strong expansion which brings many excellent features and improvements to Age of Conan.
