Welcome back you chthonian fleshpools! Hope your weekend was delightful and that the new year has been treating you well so far. It's time for another community newsletter and this week we have some stuff that we think you might like!

As you may already know, we're launching Conan Exiles for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on May 8th. This means we're now at the point where we need to start working on the build that will be put on the discs you can buy at your local video game store. The build needs to be ready at the end of January so the testing and certification process can begin. In practice, that won't have a massive impact on players, but for us it might mean some extra overtime and work. Nothing we can't handle, though.

We rolled out a PC patch today to take care of some bugs and crashes. This fixes the loot bag freeze and corrects some additional issues that have been requested by the community. The temperature system has been made more stable with this patch, and fall damage has been reduced.
We rolled out a bug and crash fixing update for Xbox on Monday. It gave us a tiny scare when it looked like none of the servers were working, but thanks to some quick work by G-Portal we were able to speedily take care of everything.

This was not the parity patch that would bring Update 32 to Xbox One. It will be released at a later date.

Every Friday, the development team meets up to highlight and talk about what they’ve been working on recently: New content and features, bugs that have been fixed, and things to come down the pipeline. To not make this newsletter overly long we're only sticking to the highlights. Even if something isn't explicitly mentioned things are still being worked on "behind the scenes", and we'll mention these when they're relevant.

We did a studio wide playtest of the new combat system on Friday. Everyone on the Conan Exiles team were pitted against each other underneath the scorching sun of the Exiled Lands. The goal of the playtest was to, obviously, test how the new paradigm behaves and how we, as players, respond to it. Overall the test went really well. The Berserkers team gathered a lot of feedback on how it all felt to play and lingering bugs that need to be fixed. We're doing another playtest this week as well. Come mid-February we hope to have a version ready for Testlive, so all of you can dig in.

What we can tell you are a few details on how it all works. Much like before, combat is divided into light and heavy attacks that can be freely strung together into combos. Attacks consume stamina, forcing you to not just rush in and blindly start hitting the attack buttons when encountering an enemy. You can also block oncoming attacks to stagger enemies, setting them up for a counter attack. So far so similar to the old system.

The new combat system adds in status effects, an improved system for staggering, more animations and more varied attacks. Status effects include things like bleeding, crippling, sundering, knockdown launchers, shield smashing and staggers. How these come into play will be revealed at a later date.

There's also been done more work to differentiate the weapons and make them feel unique when you attack. Instead of just swinging or stabbing, each weapon type has specific attacks and animations that make them feel distinct. Daggers are quick, best used to strike and then dodge away. Hammers are heavy and take time to swing, but you can sometimes gain stagger immunity during attacks. Hammers can also launch people up into the air if you hit them right. Which is just awesome!

This week, we're giving you both a peek at the entrance to the new Volcano dungeon and a look at a part of the jungle biome. You'll have to wait a little while longer before you'll be able to explore these place to your heart's content, but we can promise you it will be worth the wait.



As you reach the volcano you'll need to make your way into the center of the crater, where you'll find the entrance to the dungeon. It looks like an ancient temple, a remnant from a bygone age, where an unknown people would conduct rituals of a strange and dark nature. This is what will greet you when you enter the temple. Now the temple is not the dungeon proper, it merely houses the entryway to the dungeon. How you enter it is up for you to discover.



The jungle also contains the ruins of an ancient civilization, a people who were destroyed in a great Cataclysm long ago. You'll find their remains scattered throughout this area. This giant stone face depicts the Witch Queen, a woman of great magical power who ruled with an iron fist. Now these ruins are all that remain of her reign.

This particular place connects the jungle to the icy north through an underground travel, allowing quick passage between the two areas for travelers.

As always, Vanguard is all about the bug and exploit fixing. Since this would be the place for it, we figured it'd be interesting to give a quick explanation of our bug fixing process. As the developers or the community discover bugs, glitches and possible exploits we'll write up a report with a step-by-step guide on how to replicate the case in question. If our QA guys are able to consistently replicate the bug it's assigned a severity and given to a coder or designer for fixing. Usually we need to rejigger a blueprint in the Unreal Editor, or we might dig into the game code in order to fix the bug. The fix is then tested by QA to make sure the bug has actually been fixed. 

In addition to fixing bugs we're working on a new HUD (Heads Up Display) to better convey information to players. We want to tweak the HUD to make it work better with the more action-packed combat system so you can see your health, stamina and other stats at a glance. Once we have something to show you, we'll let you sneak a peek at what it looks like. 

Over on the Art team our character artists have been hard at work with re-making King Conan's Royal Armor from Age of Conan, which you will get to see very soon. This is an in-game item that will be given to everyone who buys the Early Access or Game Preview version of Conan Exiles. There will be a variant for female characters as well, naturally.

Improvements are being made on character models across the board. Everything from skin and facial textures to eyebrows and hair are being updated to optimize them further and take care of whatever issues and bugs might still linger. There's also work being done to expand the make-up options during character creation.

Finally, intrepid players might have noticed that we still have two more gods left in the religion selector. Our creature artist is working on two more god avatars, which we'll reveal in a future community update, so you can start speculating now on who it will be.

We're returning to our biweekly dev streams on Twitch (that's the every two weeks definition of biweekly) on Friday, January 19th. It's going to be a similar thing to the stream we did before the holiday break, where we play the game to have fun and chill out. Nicole and Jens Erik will be teaching Andy, who's community manager for Secret World Legends, to play Conan Exiles.

Hope you'll be able to join us for some laughs and good times on our Twitch channel. twitch.tv/funcom.

We'll see you next week for another newsletter!

Sincerely,

Funcom

Welcome back you chthonian fleshpools! Hope your weekend was delightful and that the new year has been treating you well so far. It's time for another community newsletter and this week we have some stuff that we think you might like!

As you may already know, we're launching Conan Exiles for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on May 8th. This means we're now at the point where we need to start working on the build that will be put on the discs you can buy at your local video game store. The build needs to be ready at the end of January so the testing and certification process can begin. In practice, that won't have a massive impact on players, but for us it might mean some extra overtime and work. Nothing we can't handle, though.

We rolled out a PC patch today to take care of some bugs and crashes. This fixes the loot bag freeze and corrects some additional issues that have been requested by the community. The temperature system has been made more stable with this patch, and fall damage has been reduced.
We rolled out a bug and crash fixing update for Xbox on Monday. It gave us a tiny scare when it looked like none of the servers were working, but thanks to some quick work by G-Portal we were able to speedily take care of everything.

This was not the parity patch that would bring Update 32 to Xbox One. It will be released at a later date.

Every Friday, the development team meets up to highlight and talk about what they’ve been working on recently: New content and features, bugs that have been fixed, and things to come down the pipeline. To not make this newsletter overly long we're only sticking to the highlights. Even if something isn't explicitly mentioned things are still being worked on "behind the scenes", and we'll mention these when they're relevant.

We did a studio wide playtest of the new combat system on Friday. Everyone on the Conan Exiles team were pitted against each other underneath the scorching sun of the Exiled Lands. The goal of the playtest was to, obviously, test how the new paradigm behaves and how we, as players, respond to it. Overall the test went really well. The Berserkers team gathered a lot of feedback on how it all felt to play and lingering bugs that need to be fixed. We're doing another playtest this week as well. Come mid-February we hope to have a version ready for Testlive, so all of you can dig in.

What we can tell you are a few details on how it all works. Much like before, combat is divided into light and heavy attacks that can be freely strung together into combos. Attacks consume stamina, forcing you to not just rush in and blindly start hitting the attack buttons when encountering an enemy. You can also block oncoming attacks to stagger enemies, setting them up for a counter attack. So far so similar to the old system.

The new combat system adds in status effects, an improved system for staggering, more animations and more varied attacks. Status effects include things like bleeding, crippling, sundering, knockdown launchers, shield smashing and staggers. How these come into play will be revealed at a later date.

There's also been done more work to differentiate the weapons and make them feel unique when you attack. Instead of just swinging or stabbing, each weapon type has specific attacks and animations that make them feel distinct. Daggers are quick, best used to strike and then dodge away. Hammers are heavy and take time to swing, but you can sometimes gain stagger immunity during attacks. Hammers can also launch people up into the air if you hit them right. Which is just awesome!

This week, we're giving you both a peek at the entrance to the new Volcano dungeon and a look at a part of the jungle biome. You'll have to wait a little while longer before you'll be able to explore these place to your heart's content, but we can promise you it will be worth the wait.



As you reach the volcano you'll need to make your way into the center of the crater, where you'll find the entrance to the dungeon. It looks like an ancient temple, a remnant from a bygone age, where an unknown people would conduct rituals of a strange and dark nature. This is what will greet you when you enter the temple. Now the temple is not the dungeon proper, it merely houses the entryway to the dungeon. How you enter it is up for you to discover.



The jungle also contains the ruins of an ancient civilization, a people who were destroyed in a great Cataclysm long ago. You'll find their remains scattered throughout this area. This giant stone face depicts the Witch Queen, a woman of great magical power who ruled with an iron fist. Now these ruins are all that remain of her reign.

This particular place connects the jungle to the icy north through an underground travel, allowing quick passage between the two areas for travelers.

As always, Vanguard is all about the bug and exploit fixing. Since this would be the place for it, we figured it'd be interesting to give a quick explanation of our bug fixing process. As the developers or the community discover bugs, glitches and possible exploits we'll write up a report with a step-by-step guide on how to replicate the case in question. If our QA guys are able to consistently replicate the bug it's assigned a severity and given to a coder or designer for fixing. Usually we need to rejigger a blueprint in the Unreal Editor, or we might dig into the game code in order to fix the bug. The fix is then tested by QA to make sure the bug has actually been fixed. 

In addition to fixing bugs we're working on a new HUD (Heads Up Display) to better convey information to players. We want to tweak the HUD to make it work better with the more action-packed combat system so you can see your health, stamina and other stats at a glance. Once we have something to show you, we'll let you sneak a peek at what it looks like. 

Over on the Art team our character artists have been hard at work with re-making King Conan's Royal Armor from Age of Conan, which you will get to see very soon. This is an in-game item that will be given to everyone who buys the Early Access or Game Preview version of Conan Exiles. There will be a variant for female characters as well, naturally.

Improvements are being made on character models across the board. Everything from skin and facial textures to eyebrows and hair are being updated to optimize them further and take care of whatever issues and bugs might still linger. There's also work being done to expand the make-up options during character creation.

Finally, intrepid players might have noticed that we still have two more gods left in the religion selector. Our creature artist is working on two more god avatars, which we'll reveal in a future community update, so you can start speculating now on who it will be.

We're returning to our biweekly dev streams on Twitch (that's the every two weeks definition of biweekly) on Friday, January 19th. It's going to be a similar thing to the stream we did before the holiday break, where we play the game to have fun and chill out. Nicole and Jens Erik will be teaching Andy, who's community manager for Secret World Legends, to play Conan Exiles.

Hope you'll be able to join us for some laughs and good times on our Twitch channel. twitch.tv/funcom.

We'll see you next week for another newsletter!

Sincerely,

Funcom

Hey all! A quick hotfix to fix and adjust some things. The community letter will be out later today so keep an eye on that for info on what's to come. :) Have a good Wednesday!

• NPC bodies will despawn faster.
  
• Fixed an issue where using the torch would make the area around you too bright to other players.
  
• Fall damage has been reduced.
  
• Removed winter loading screen and changed it back to the default
  
• Temperature system improvement: Fixed a bug where character temperature changes would be permanently modified when weather changes occur in game. This could lead to heatstroke in cold areas or frostbite in warm areas when trying to counteract the temperature system
  
• Fixed a bug where changing the filter on a loot bag/container, and removing items would freeze the game at the last item.

Hey all! A quick hotfix to fix and adjust some things. The community letter will be out later today so keep an eye on that for info on what's to come. :) Have a good Wednesday!

• NPC bodies will despawn faster.
  
• Fixed an issue where using the torch would make the area around you too bright to other players.
  
• Fall damage has been reduced.
  
• Removed winter loading screen and changed it back to the default
  
• Temperature system improvement: Fixed a bug where character temperature changes would be permanently modified when weather changes occur in game. This could lead to heatstroke in cold areas or frostbite in warm areas when trying to counteract the temperature system
  
• Fixed a bug where changing the filter on a loot bag/container, and removing items would freeze the game at the last item.

Hey everyone!

Just a quick announcement that the community newsletter is being pushed to tomorrow. In case you were wondering :)

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday.

Hey everyone!

Just a quick announcement that the community newsletter is being pushed to tomorrow. In case you were wondering :)

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday.

Happy new year, everyone! We hope you all had a great holiday break and are ready to take on 2018 with both vim and vigor. Let's also take bets on how long it will take us to get used to writing "2018" instead of "2017". From what we hear most people need to get through at least January to write the correct year.

We're fully back in the swing of things at the Funcom office. Time to get cracking on content updates, patches, and bug and exploit fixes in between watching some amazing Awesome Games Done Quick speedruns. We're also looking at the milestones we need to hit before launch to make sure we actually have the resources and time to actually make them.

Of course, a new year means a new run of weekly newsletters. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin!

Now that we're back we've been working on a hotfix for PC to take care of some issues we've been able to solve quickly. We patched Testlive with a build to take care of the loot bag freeze bug and there is a new build on Testlive today that adds some changes to the temperature system and fall damage. The plan is for this patch to go to Live server next week.

Looking forwards we're moving towards a feature complete version of the new combat system, which we expect to deploy to Testlive servers in the middle of February. We have invested a lot of time into the new combat system, and we will need your feedback to tweak the balance and improve fun factor before launch.

As you've undoubtedly heard by now, there's a volcano area and jungle biome being added to the game, and both of them come with new monsters, dungeons and more content for you guys to dig into.

Finally, we're aware of a bug/exploit that allows players to walk through walls, which we're currently investigating. If you have any knowledge of how this is done (or any other exploit you've seen), we'd love to hear about it though our Exploit Hunters page. Feel free to link us videos there as well.

Next up for Xbox we're bringing Update 32 to the console once we're done with stability work and it passes cert. Update 32 will bring weapons and armor modifications, the new weather system, ladders, ceiling hatches, weapon racks, and new tools, weapons and armor to Xbox One, in addition to fixes to the Thrall inventory system we introduced with Update 31.


Every Friday, the development team meets up to highlight and talk about what they’ve been working on recently: New content and features, bugs that have been fixed, and things to come down the pipeline. To not make this newsletter overly long we're only sticking to the highlights. Even if something isn't explicitly mentioned things are still being worked on "behind the scenes", and we'll mention these when they're relevant.


Team Vanguard is back on their bug fixing train, plugging away at issues both big and small in order to make the game better. We've now set up a whiteboard outside their office which is updated after each patch with top community issues and tasks that need to be a priority. Improving the decay system, making avatars craftable with on Xbox (coming in Update 32), fixes to fall damage and the Wheel of Pain desync issue are examples of issues being worked on.


The Berserkers are putting the finishing touches on the new combat system. They've added the ability for players to dodge out of hit stuns, sacrificing stamina to escape chained attacks, and different blocking and stagger animations based on which weapon the blocker is being attacked with. We are planning two internal tests over the next weeks to test the new combat system in PvE and PvP scenarios. The first test is with the devteam and the second test includes devs from other teams. The third test will be in the middle of February (as mentioned above) when we invite you guys to check out and give feedback on the new combat system on our Testlive servers.


Our artists are working on finishing up their remaining tasks for the game, creating weapons, tools, armor and other items as needed. The biggest of which is Conan's Royal Armor, which is being remade from the original concept for Conan Exiles. It's looking incredible already and we'll make sure to give you guys a glimpse at it when we're able. Existing armor, weapons and character models are getting some polishing and updates. Because it makes them look much better and they deserve it.

In terms of creatures and monsters our animators are also working on giving them new emotes and idle animations so they'll look and feel more lifelike.


Over on the Terraformers side, the team has begun putting the finishing touches on the Volcano area and new dungeon, and adding more content to the jungle biome. There were also a few textures which the team felt it could improve to lift the visual quality and so this is also being done. Team Terraformers have also been experimenting with a new tool which lets them generate heightmaps faster as well as iterate more quickly when doing changes. This removes some of the tedious work (map cleanup and bugfixing) and lets the artists focus more on the creative aspects like making interesting locations for you guys to play.

The designers on Team Terraformers have started on what we call the "content rebalance project". While we strongly believe the new combat system will improve the moment to moment gameplay in the game, the new combat system cannot be introduced in isolation. The "content rebalance project" involves tweaking the ecology (NPC population) and changing lots of small bits and pieces with the aim of providing a more diverse and challenging experience. We will go into more detail in a later community update.


In case you missed it on Friday, we announced the winners of our Holiday Screenshot Competition! The grand prize winners each get a Collector's Edition of their choice and a canvas print of the banner you'll see in this newsletter. The second-place winners get that same canvas print, and the third-place winners each get a Barbarian Edition T-shirt. Congratulations to all our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in the competition. If you didn't win this time, don't worry, there'll be more!

For those of you curious about the dev streams we can say right away that they will continue. The next Conan Exiles developer stream is planned for the 19th of January, so tune into our Twitch channel at our usual time (5pm CET) for some fun shenanigans.

Thanks for reading, we'll see you next week!

PS: Sorry about this newsletter being a bit late! I simply forgot to post it to the community hub.

Happy new year, everyone! We hope you all had a great holiday break and are ready to take on 2018 with both vim and vigor. Let's also take bets on how long it will take us to get used to writing "2018" instead of "2017". From what we hear most people need to get through at least January to write the correct year.

We're fully back in the swing of things at the Funcom office. Time to get cracking on content updates, patches, and bug and exploit fixes in between watching some amazing Awesome Games Done Quick speedruns. We're also looking at the milestones we need to hit before launch to make sure we actually have the resources and time to actually make them.

Of course, a new year means a new run of weekly newsletters. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin!

Now that we're back we've been working on a hotfix for PC to take care of some issues we've been able to solve quickly. We patched Testlive with a build to take care of the loot bag freeze bug and there is a new build on Testlive today that adds some changes to the temperature system and fall damage. The plan is for this patch to go to Live server next week.

Looking forwards we're moving towards a feature complete version of the new combat system, which we expect to deploy to Testlive servers in the middle of February. We have invested a lot of time into the new combat system, and we will need your feedback to tweak the balance and improve fun factor before launch.

As you've undoubtedly heard by now, there's a volcano area and jungle biome being added to the game, and both of them come with new monsters, dungeons and more content for you guys to dig into.

Finally, we're aware of a bug/exploit that allows players to walk through walls, which we're currently investigating. If you have any knowledge of how this is done (or any other exploit you've seen), we'd love to hear about it though our Exploit Hunters page. Feel free to link us videos there as well.

Next up for Xbox we're bringing Update 32 to the console once we're done with stability work and it passes cert. Update 32 will bring weapons and armor modifications, the new weather system, ladders, ceiling hatches, weapon racks, and new tools, weapons and armor to Xbox One, in addition to fixes to the Thrall inventory system we introduced with Update 31.


Every Friday, the development team meets up to highlight and talk about what they’ve been working on recently: New content and features, bugs that have been fixed, and things to come down the pipeline. To not make this newsletter overly long we're only sticking to the highlights. Even if something isn't explicitly mentioned things are still being worked on "behind the scenes", and we'll mention these when they're relevant.


Team Vanguard is back on their bug fixing train, plugging away at issues both big and small in order to make the game better. We've now set up a whiteboard outside their office which is updated after each patch with top community issues and tasks that need to be a priority. Improving the decay system, making avatars craftable with on Xbox (coming in Update 32), fixes to fall damage and the Wheel of Pain desync issue are examples of issues being worked on.


The Berserkers are putting the finishing touches on the new combat system. They've added the ability for players to dodge out of hit stuns, sacrificing stamina to escape chained attacks, and different blocking and stagger animations based on which weapon the blocker is being attacked with. We are planning two internal tests over the next weeks to test the new combat system in PvE and PvP scenarios. The first test is with the devteam and the second test includes devs from other teams. The third test will be in the middle of February (as mentioned above) when we invite you guys to check out and give feedback on the new combat system on our Testlive servers.


Our artists are working on finishing up their remaining tasks for the game, creating weapons, tools, armor and other items as needed. The biggest of which is Conan's Royal Armor, which is being remade from the original concept for Conan Exiles. It's looking incredible already and we'll make sure to give you guys a glimpse at it when we're able. Existing armor, weapons and character models are getting some polishing and updates. Because it makes them look much better and they deserve it.

In terms of creatures and monsters our animators are also working on giving them new emotes and idle animations so they'll look and feel more lifelike.


Over on the Terraformers side, the team has begun putting the finishing touches on the Volcano area and new dungeon, and adding more content to the jungle biome. There were also a few textures which the team felt it could improve to lift the visual quality and so this is also being done. Team Terraformers have also been experimenting with a new tool which lets them generate heightmaps faster as well as iterate more quickly when doing changes. This removes some of the tedious work (map cleanup and bugfixing) and lets the artists focus more on the creative aspects like making interesting locations for you guys to play.

The designers on Team Terraformers have started on what we call the "content rebalance project". While we strongly believe the new combat system will improve the moment to moment gameplay in the game, the new combat system cannot be introduced in isolation. The "content rebalance project" involves tweaking the ecology (NPC population) and changing lots of small bits and pieces with the aim of providing a more diverse and challenging experience. We will go into more detail in a later community update.


In case you missed it on Friday, we announced the winners of our Holiday Screenshot Competition! The grand prize winners each get a Collector's Edition of their choice and a canvas print of the banner you'll see in this newsletter. The second-place winners get that same canvas print, and the third-place winners each get a Barbarian Edition T-shirt. Congratulations to all our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in the competition. If you didn't win this time, don't worry, there'll be more!

For those of you curious about the dev streams we can say right away that they will continue. The next Conan Exiles developer stream is planned for the 19th of January, so tune into our Twitch channel at our usual time (5pm CET) for some fun shenanigans.

Thanks for reading, we'll see you next week!

PS: Sorry about this newsletter being a bit late! I simply forgot to post it to the community hub.

Dear exiles,

Happy new year! We hope everyone had a great holiday season and hope you're ready to dive headfirst into 2018.

Before the holiday break we announced a community competition, asking players to send us their best holiday themed screenshots from Conan Exiles. We got a lot of really cool screenshots from you guys, both on PC and on Xbox, and it's been incredibly difficult choosing winners. Eventually, we finally landed on a grand prize winner and two runners up for each platform.

You can find all the winners on our developer blog: https://www.conanexiles.com/blog/winners-holiday-screenshot-competition/

The grand prize winner will get a Conan Exiles Collector's Edition and a canvas print of the game's key art. 2nd place wins a key art canvas print and the 3rd place entry will get a Barbarian Edition T-shirt.

Dear exiles,

Happy new year! We hope everyone had a great holiday season and hope you're ready to dive headfirst into 2018.

Before the holiday break we announced a community competition, asking players to send us their best holiday themed screenshots from Conan Exiles. We got a lot of really cool screenshots from you guys, both on PC and on Xbox, and it's been incredibly difficult choosing winners. Eventually, we finally landed on a grand prize winner and two runners up for each platform.

You can find all the winners on our developer blog: https://www.conanexiles.com/blog/winners-holiday-screenshot-competition/

The grand prize winner will get a Conan Exiles Collector's Edition and a canvas print of the game's key art. 2nd place wins a key art canvas print and the 3rd place entry will get a Barbarian Edition T-shirt.