Good afternoon, great and shimmying heartbubbles!

We're still crunching and working overtime in order to get everything submitted for the Gold Build deadline. It's just a couple of days away! Bugs are being fixed, gameplay is being tweaked and content is being added on an almost constant basis.

As mentioned in previous newsletters, the Gold Build is what's making it onto the discs you can buy in stores. Just because we're submitting a Gold Build does not mean our work is done once we've submitted. We still need to patch Update 32 to Xbox, which we hope to do in March at the earliest, and we will also patch the new combat system to Testlive, aiming for mid-February. On launch-day there will be a patch including the Jungle, Volcano, additional features and plenty of bug fixes.

If you're interested in seeing all the changes we've been doing to combat you need look no further than our YouTube channel. We did a livestream on Twitch where we talked about how we're revamping combat and what players can expect from the new system. We hope you like it.

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.

The Vanguard are busy fixing bugs and doing general gameplay improvements to the game. Our systems designer is working on making the sandstorm do damage to players, which is a key feature of the game. Other fixes include making sure death, respawning and the death markers work as intended and taking care of various lag spikes.

Improvements include things like making sure NPC weapons don't "hang" in the air after a server restart. There was also a problem with arrows getting stuck in the air if there was a collision problem between the shield and arrow models. Finally, if you've gotten shot by multiple arrows you might end up looking like a pin cushion because arrows will be stuck in your character. We've now made it so that rolling around will break the arrows.

If you primarily play the game in single-player mode this next section is useful for you. We're adding a change to make it so you don't automatically have admin rights when starting a single-player game. This is to encourage players to play the game as designed. Getting admin rights is very quick and easy, though: you just click a button and you have the power of a server admin.

Our artists have been knee-deep in playtesting this past week. Now that we're approaching one of our development milestones we're trying to get in as much internal playtesting as possible to root out additional bugs and other things that needs fixes. It's also good for the artists to see how their creations play out in the game. They can see how it impacts performance, how it moves and changes depending on various situations, and then do the whatever changes are necessary.

The 3D artists, who are the people creating item models, are getting some character artist training down the line so they can help out with making creatures and clothing and armors. The end goal is to ease the load on our character artist and have more people capable of transitioning between different artist roles.

Over on the animation side, there's a creature revamp in the works. The new combat paradigm isn't just meant for PvP, but PvE as well. As such we need to adapt our monsters and animals as well. We're adding in new attack animations, with a greater focus on telegraphs and anticipation time in order to make creature combat more tactical.

Another part of the creature revamp is making animals and monsters feel more realistic. They're getting more emotes and idle animations that will play out as they go about their business in the Exiled Lands. Expect to see hyenas munching on deer carcasses, while feline creatures and Shalebacks might lie down for a nice rest. While it might seem like a minor update it adds more realism and makes the game world feel more alive than previously.

If you joined us for our combat stream on Friday you may have noticed the updated HUD. We experimented with over 4 major and 20 minor HUD variations (insert your weed joke of choice here) when designing the new HUD.

What would be the best way for us to convey information at a glance? Revamp the circles? Replace them? With what? Bars? A radial menu? Or do we design something that looks like the bracelet the Exiles wear around their wrists? Finally, we ended up with something that combines the lot.



Another part of the HUD is the Journey GUI. You've seen this before if you've ever hit the J key. The Journey GUI is made to teach the player the game's mechanics and push them to explore and figure things out. Now we're making the Journey GUI stand out a bit more. Players are given a list of three tasks that will be switched out automatically whenever you finish a task. This way we'll be able to give players a more directed game experience.

The Berserkers team has been planning out the workload for the remaining combat fixes before everything goes to Testlive. We've also gotten a ton of feedback from the community after the stream. Thank you to everyone who reached out. Although we might not be able to respond to everything we do read what you have to say.

This week we're also doing a playtest over in the US office to get some fresh eyes on the combat changes. Everyone over in Durham, NC, are usually working on Secret World Legends, but will help us out with playtests and feedback if needed. We do the same for them, obviously. Then we'll address the critical feedback, then we roll out on Testlive.

One of the things remaining on the combat roadmap is deciding what to do about first person. When the new combat rolls we're forcing you to switch to third person when you equip a weapon. This is because we're intending for Conan Exiles to be played in the third person perspective with the new combat system. Having said that it will be possible to do pretty much everything else (harvesting, building, crafting, exploring) in the first-person perspective. We know a lot of players prefer first person and we want to accommodate them as much as we can.

There will be no Conan Exiles stream this week, but we're working on our plans for a stream next week that we think you'll like.

We'll also working on a list of features that will be available to players at launch. While we did plan to have it ready to go out this week it looks like we'll need to shift it back to next week instead. We need to get it translated into all languages supported in the game and translation work takes time.

Sincerely,

Funcom

Good afternoon, great and shimmying heartbubbles!

We're still crunching and working overtime in order to get everything submitted for the Gold Build deadline. It's just a couple of days away! Bugs are being fixed, gameplay is being tweaked and content is being added on an almost constant basis.

As mentioned in previous newsletters, the Gold Build is what's making it onto the discs you can buy in stores. Just because we're submitting a Gold Build does not mean our work is done once we've submitted. We still need to patch Update 32 to Xbox, which we hope to do in March at the earliest, and we will also patch the new combat system to Testlive, aiming for mid-February. On launch-day there will be a patch including the Jungle, Volcano, additional features and plenty of bug fixes.

If you're interested in seeing all the changes we've been doing to combat you need look no further than our YouTube channel. We did a livestream on Twitch where we talked about how we're revamping combat and what players can expect from the new system. We hope you like it.

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.

The Vanguard are busy fixing bugs and doing general gameplay improvements to the game. Our systems designer is working on making the sandstorm do damage to players, which is a key feature of the game. Other fixes include making sure death, respawning and the death markers work as intended and taking care of various lag spikes.

Improvements include things like making sure NPC weapons don't "hang" in the air after a server restart. There was also a problem with arrows getting stuck in the air if there was a collision problem between the shield and arrow models. Finally, if you've gotten shot by multiple arrows you might end up looking like a pin cushion because arrows will be stuck in your character. We've now made it so that rolling around will break the arrows.

If you primarily play the game in single-player mode this next section is useful for you. We're adding a change to make it so you don't automatically have admin rights when starting a single-player game. This is to encourage players to play the game as designed. Getting admin rights is very quick and easy, though: you just click a button and you have the power of a server admin.

Our artists have been knee-deep in playtesting this past week. Now that we're approaching one of our development milestones we're trying to get in as much internal playtesting as possible to root out additional bugs and other things that needs fixes. It's also good for the artists to see how their creations play out in the game. They can see how it impacts performance, how it moves and changes depending on various situations, and then do the whatever changes are necessary.

The 3D artists, who are the people creating item models, are getting some character artist training down the line so they can help out with making creatures and clothing and armors. The end goal is to ease the load on our character artist and have more people capable of transitioning between different artist roles.

Over on the animation side, there's a creature revamp in the works. The new combat paradigm isn't just meant for PvP, but PvE as well. As such we need to adapt our monsters and animals as well. We're adding in new attack animations, with a greater focus on telegraphs and anticipation time in order to make creature combat more tactical.

Another part of the creature revamp is making animals and monsters feel more realistic. They're getting more emotes and idle animations that will play out as they go about their business in the Exiled Lands. Expect to see hyenas munching on deer carcasses, while feline creatures and Shalebacks might lie down for a nice rest. While it might seem like a minor update it adds more realism and makes the game world feel more alive than previously.

If you joined us for our combat stream on Friday you may have noticed the updated HUD. We experimented with over 4 major and 20 minor HUD variations (insert your weed joke of choice here) when designing the new HUD.

What would be the best way for us to convey information at a glance? Revamp the circles? Replace them? With what? Bars? A radial menu? Or do we design something that looks like the bracelet the Exiles wear around their wrists? Finally, we ended up with something that combines the lot.



Another part of the HUD is the Journey GUI. You've seen this before if you've ever hit the J key. The Journey GUI is made to teach the player the game's mechanics and push them to explore and figure things out. Now we're making the Journey GUI stand out a bit more. Players are given a list of three tasks that will be switched out automatically whenever you finish a task. This way we'll be able to give players a more directed game experience.

The Berserkers team has been planning out the workload for the remaining combat fixes before everything goes to Testlive. We've also gotten a ton of feedback from the community after the stream. Thank you to everyone who reached out. Although we might not be able to respond to everything we do read what you have to say.

This week we're also doing a playtest over in the US office to get some fresh eyes on the combat changes. Everyone over in Durham, NC, are usually working on Secret World Legends, but will help us out with playtests and feedback if needed. We do the same for them, obviously. Then we'll address the critical feedback, then we roll out on Testlive.

One of the things remaining on the combat roadmap is deciding what to do about first person. When the new combat rolls we're forcing you to switch to third person when you equip a weapon. This is because we're intending for Conan Exiles to be played in the third person perspective with the new combat system. Having said that it will be possible to do pretty much everything else (harvesting, building, crafting, exploring) in the first-person perspective. We know a lot of players prefer first person and we want to accommodate them as much as we can.

There will be no Conan Exiles stream this week, but we're working on our plans for a stream next week that we think you'll like.

We'll also working on a list of features that will be available to players at launch. While we did plan to have it ready to go out this week it looks like we'll need to shift it back to next week instead. We need to get it translated into all languages supported in the game and translation work takes time.

Sincerely,

Funcom

Today was a very exciting day, as we livestreamed our new and improved combat system. It was an information heavy stream with lots of things to go through, but we got it all done in the end.

If you missed it, you can watch all of it over on our YouTube channel. Hope you guys enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwc9oKMnZyE

Also, in case you missed this too: We are working on a list of things you can expect from the game at launch, to be revealed next week. We haven't forgotten you.

Today was a very exciting day, as we livestreamed our new and improved combat system. It was an information heavy stream with lots of things to go through, but we got it all done in the end.

If you missed it, you can watch all of it over on our YouTube channel. Hope you guys enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwc9oKMnZyE

Also, in case you missed this too: We are working on a list of things you can expect from the game at launch, to be revealed next week. We haven't forgotten you.

Good morning, yummy Internet badgers!

A year ago today, our Early Access journey began with the release of Conan Exiles. And what a year it's been!

Over the past 12 months both Funcom and Conan Exiles has changed and grown into something truly special. New content has been added on a consistent basis, ranging from new weapons and armor to game changing additions like climbing and siege weaponry. We launched a new biome, doubling the game's play field. We've also fixed a butt-load of bugs!

We've been the most viewed game on Twitch and one of the top sellers on Steam. People went nuts (no pun intended) over in-game nudity. We showed off the game at PAX East. We went to E3. We showed off the game on Twitch's main stage at Gamescom. We launched on Xbox One. Freaking Weebl made a song about our game! How cool is that?!

We're incredibly proud of the things we've accomplished, but this Early Access adventure is far from over. Even though the finish line is moving closer and closer we still have a lot of work left. Everyone is working overtime and weekends to get things ready for the Gold Build.

Of course, we would be nothing without our amazing community. You guys have stuck with us through thick and thin, holding us accountable when we mess up and praising us when we succeed. You're just as much as part of this journey as we are. From all of us here at Funcom, thank you very much.

Seeing as we're hunkering down to hit our deadlines the future newsletters might be a little lighter on content than previous ones. For next week we're planning a blog post of what players can expect from the game at launch in terms of features and functionality. And please keep in mind that we are planning on supporting Conan Exiles once we're out of Early Access.


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.


Our art team has been cranking out new assets for a variety of things. The new biomes will come with new crafting materials that you can make weapons and armor out of, and there are several cultural armor styles we've yet to release. In fact, we can give you a sneak-preview at one of them right now: The Stygian Medium Armor.



Since Stygia is a direct parallel to Egypt in Conan's universe we really wanted this to shine through the outfit, creating an armor set that looks like it belongs to a pharao's elite guards. The pattern on the arms and chest piece is meant to evoke snakeskin, as snakes are holy in Stygia. Like all the other armors in Conan Exiles the Stygian armor can be re-colored with the dye system, letting you create your own, personal look.



For launch we're also revamping the loading screen with new art assets, and some tool tips to help new players just starting out in the game. In addition to this the Journey GUI will be more front and center, further aiding you along the path to becoming the greatest Exiled in the land.

When the art team isn't busy making models and textures they're helping out with playtesting and bug reporting, as needed.


We see some of you asking why the Volcano or Jungle hasn't been released yet, and why we're still holding onto them for launch. In short, we want to take the time to make sure the new playfields are as well made as possible.

The Jungle biome has about two-three people working on it on the Terraformers team, and they've built pretty much everything from the ground up. The layout, the size and shapes of buildings, the size and shapes of the trees, the way the light is filtered through the trees, it's all them. The art team helps out with textures, creatures and the general building blocks, but actually creating the entire biome is done by a small number of people.

It's a big area, built up from nothing, and it even turned out bigger than we initially planned. Which then adds more time to development. The content rebalance will also have an effect on resources (like what you get when you use certain tools on specific resource nodes), NPCs and creatures in the Jungle, and it's a time-consuming process.



Once everything is laid out we need to go back and re-consider a lot of the choices that have been made. Are the creature and NPC populations too high? Too low? Where do we place resources? How do we funnel players towards points of interest? Should there be creatures here, or nothing? Tons of questions, big and small, that are considered over and over until we finally reach a point where we're satisfied with our decisions. Right now, we're rethinking population, and doing multiple passes to tweak it just right.

At the same time, we're playing through the Jungle on our internal dev servers so we can offer feedback to the Terraformers working on the new playfield. It's all an ongoing process that results in a better final product.


We haven't heard from the Audio team in a while, so we thought we'd check in to see what they've been up to. Arild, our audio lead, has gotten some help in the form of a junior sound designer named Bendik. They've been revamping the sound of combat, making things sound more visceral. The environmental sounds and music has also gotten some love.

Finally, as mentioned a few weeks ago, we've gotten new music from composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen. He delivered 7 new tracks for the game, giving the game's soundtrack a total of 23 original pieces of music. You'll basically be hearing music wherever you go and whatever you do in Conan Exiles.

You'll get to hear all of it once the game launches on May 8th, but we have a small preview of one of the new tracks, New Asagarth, over on our dev blog.


Since we're celebrating our one-year anniversary we figured our next developer stream should be something special. We're doing a combat stream to show off the new combat paradigm. This will be an extended, in-depth look at the changes we've made, with the developers in charge of the whole thing.

We hope you all tune in at twitch.tv/funcom at 5pm CET, because we know it's going to be a great stream.

Starting today the community newsletters will come out on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays. This is just so there's more time to write and prepare everything that needs to go into them.

Sincerely,

Funcom

Good morning, yummy Internet badgers!

A year ago today, our Early Access journey began with the release of Conan Exiles. And what a year it's been!

Over the past 12 months both Funcom and Conan Exiles has changed and grown into something truly special. New content has been added on a consistent basis, ranging from new weapons and armor to game changing additions like climbing and siege weaponry. We launched a new biome, doubling the game's play field. We've also fixed a butt-load of bugs!

We've been the most viewed game on Twitch and one of the top sellers on Steam. People went nuts (no pun intended) over in-game nudity. We showed off the game at PAX East. We went to E3. We showed off the game on Twitch's main stage at Gamescom. We launched on Xbox One. Freaking Weebl made a song about our game! How cool is that?!

We're incredibly proud of the things we've accomplished, but this Early Access adventure is far from over. Even though the finish line is moving closer and closer we still have a lot of work left. Everyone is working overtime and weekends to get things ready for the Gold Build.

Of course, we would be nothing without our amazing community. You guys have stuck with us through thick and thin, holding us accountable when we mess up and praising us when we succeed. You're just as much as part of this journey as we are. From all of us here at Funcom, thank you very much.

Seeing as we're hunkering down to hit our deadlines the future newsletters might be a little lighter on content than previous ones. For next week we're planning a blog post of what players can expect from the game at launch in terms of features and functionality. And please keep in mind that we are planning on supporting Conan Exiles once we're out of Early Access.


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.


Our art team has been cranking out new assets for a variety of things. The new biomes will come with new crafting materials that you can make weapons and armor out of, and there are several cultural armor styles we've yet to release. In fact, we can give you a sneak-preview at one of them right now: The Stygian Medium Armor.



Since Stygia is a direct parallel to Egypt in Conan's universe we really wanted this to shine through the outfit, creating an armor set that looks like it belongs to a pharao's elite guards. The pattern on the arms and chest piece is meant to evoke snakeskin, as snakes are holy in Stygia. Like all the other armors in Conan Exiles the Stygian armor can be re-colored with the dye system, letting you create your own, personal look.



For launch we're also revamping the loading screen with new art assets, and some tool tips to help new players just starting out in the game. In addition to this the Journey GUI will be more front and center, further aiding you along the path to becoming the greatest Exiled in the land.

When the art team isn't busy making models and textures they're helping out with playtesting and bug reporting, as needed.


We see some of you asking why the Volcano or Jungle hasn't been released yet, and why we're still holding onto them for launch. In short, we want to take the time to make sure the new playfields are as well made as possible.

The Jungle biome has about two-three people working on it on the Terraformers team, and they've built pretty much everything from the ground up. The layout, the size and shapes of buildings, the size and shapes of the trees, the way the light is filtered through the trees, it's all them. The art team helps out with textures, creatures and the general building blocks, but actually creating the entire biome is done by a small number of people.

It's a big area, built up from nothing, and it even turned out bigger than we initially planned. Which then adds more time to development. The content rebalance will also have an effect on resources (like what you get when you use certain tools on specific resource nodes), NPCs and creatures in the Jungle, and it's a time-consuming process.



Once everything is laid out we need to go back and re-consider a lot of the choices that have been made. Are the creature and NPC populations too high? Too low? Where do we place resources? How do we funnel players towards points of interest? Should there be creatures here, or nothing? Tons of questions, big and small, that are considered over and over until we finally reach a point where we're satisfied with our decisions. Right now, we're rethinking population, and doing multiple passes to tweak it just right.

At the same time, we're playing through the Jungle on our internal dev servers so we can offer feedback to the Terraformers working on the new playfield. It's all an ongoing process that results in a better final product.


We haven't heard from the Audio team in a while, so we thought we'd check in to see what they've been up to. Arild, our audio lead, has gotten some help in the form of a junior sound designer named Bendik. They've been revamping the sound of combat, making things sound more visceral. The environmental sounds and music has also gotten some love.

Finally, as mentioned a few weeks ago, we've gotten new music from composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen. He delivered 7 new tracks for the game, giving the game's soundtrack a total of 23 original pieces of music. You'll basically be hearing music wherever you go and whatever you do in Conan Exiles.

You'll get to hear all of it once the game launches on May 8th, but we have a small preview of one of the new tracks, New Asagarth, over on our dev blog.


Since we're celebrating our one-year anniversary we figured our next developer stream should be something special. We're doing a combat stream to show off the new combat paradigm. This will be an extended, in-depth look at the changes we've made, with the developers in charge of the whole thing.

We hope you all tune in at twitch.tv/funcom at 5pm CET, because we know it's going to be a great stream.

Starting today the community newsletters will come out on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays. This is just so there's more time to write and prepare everything that needs to go into them.

Sincerely,

Funcom

Dear Exiles,

A year ago today our Early Access adventure began. We want to thank our community for joining us on this journey, for all your feedback, bug reports, suggestions and words of encouragement along the way. Stay tuned to the end of the video for a special announcement.

https://youtu.be/do5hd_hCTt0

Dear Exiles,

A year ago today our Early Access adventure began. We want to thank our community for joining us on this journey, for all your feedback, bug reports, suggestions and words of encouragement along the way. Stay tuned to the end of the video for a special announcement.

https://youtu.be/do5hd_hCTt0

Good afternoon, you galloping love fruit-bats. Here we are again, back with another newsletter!

We've finalized our roadmap and development milestones for the final stretch of the Early Access process, meaning we're now barreling towards the endgame. On said roadmap are things like the combat revamp, additional items, content revamp and a host of other goodies we'll share on stream and in these newsletter in the coming months.

The volcano and jungle will become available at launch, whereas the new combat paradigm will definitely roll out on PC before May 8th. Project Content Rebalance will hopefully make it to PC players pre-launch, but may be moved back depending on when the work is finished.

Following up on what we mentioned last week, we have now moved into a crunch period to get everything ready and finalized for physical discs, aka "The Gold Build". This is the build what will be on the discs you buy in a store. It's a fully functional game that players can pick up and play without the need for an Internet connection. We can't assume that people will patch, since not everyone has Internet access 24/7, so this build needs to be stable and contain everything players expect. From a bug-fixing perspective it means prioritizing serious bugs that block player progress

The submission and certification process runs through January and February and the Gold Build needs to be locked in and ready for print about 6-8 weeks before full launch. The reason for this is that printing physical discs happens in one location, while packaging the physical editions takes place in a different location. Only certain printing houses are authorized to print console discs, so we have to work around their capacity and lead time requirements. On PC things are more relaxed. There's more flexibility in terms of where the discs are printed.

Once the Gold Build is approved the devteam will switch focus to the day 1 patch for PC and consoles. The day 1 patch will include less critical fixes as well as some content changes which did not make it into the Gold Build. If you're interested in reading more about Day 1 Patches there's a great blog post from Rami Ismail on the topic over on Kotaku.

Early Access players on PC will continue to see some patches and updates, albeit somewhat less frequently. For Xbox players it means there won't be an Update 32 Parity Patch until March at the earliest. Once the submission and certification process begins Microsoft doesn't allow us to add anything to the current Game Preview version of the game. We apologize for not being able to release this patch sooner, and thank you for your patience.

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.



Hey, would you look at that! Two-handed swords! These are scheduled to come out at launch, and players can craft them out of Stone, Iron, Steel, Hardened Steel and Starmetal. Much like the hammers, they're big and heavy, taking a long time to swing, but also deal a lot of damage once they connect to an opponent.



Secondly, sprinting with weapons and tools is back! This was removed a while back, partly in order to deal with lag jousting, where players would use server latency to win combat encounters. The other reason was to highlight the difference between being in and out of combat. Sprinting away from an encounter is the defining factor that differentiates being in, or out, of combat. However, after both taking your feedback into account and seeing that lag jousting is essentially eliminated with the new combat paradigm, we're making it so you can sprint with weapons and tools again.

We fired off a second combat playtest on Friday, with a ton of changes and updates from the previous test (like sprinting with weapons!). There's still experimentation going on in terms of stamina management, health regeneration and damage numbers, but we're steadily moving towards a version that we think will be balanced and fun, and once we are at that stage we will deploy to Testlive servers to hear your feedback and suggestions!

Vanguard's main task at the moment is getting builds ready for certification, making sure they meet all the necessary requirements set by Microsoft and Sony. Pretty much everything from stability, branding, GUI consistency and responsiveness have certain requirements that we need to hit. This is to ensure that the experience on Xbox and PlayStation is more consistent across all games than on PC, where it's more up to each individual developer.

In addition to this one of our Vanguard designers has finished up work on the new perk system, which will add improvements and modifiers to your character based on how you've levelled up your Attributes. Examples include things like a double jump skill, better stamina consumption, quicker healing, and now, a ricochet shot, for all you Hanzo mains out there.

They've also shown the system for dying and respawning some needed love in order to improve the experience for players. Player corpses should now reload better after a server crash, which had some inconsistencies in the past. Death Markers should also be less prone to breaking. NPC and player corpses now have different expiry times, and they've added a neat little glowing green light that emanates from your character's bracelet when they die.

Last, but certainly not least, is a quick loot GUI to help you take things from players and NPCs much quicker than before.

The Terraformers have been wrapping up the final bits of content they need to get wrapped up for the Gold Build. We've talked extensively about the volcano and jungle already, so we'll leave those out for a bit this time and talk about some other stuff!

Project Content Rebalance has been going well so far and we got to experience a sample of the changes during the Friday combat playtest. This rebalance involves tweaking the NPC population and resource nodes in order to provide a more diverse and challenging experience to players. Being used to the previous "shotgun approach" to NPCs and resources the game definitely felt different, but in a positive way. Creatures and NPCs were sparser, which made meeting other humans feel more special, like the Exiled Lands really were a place only the strongest can survive.

In terms of new content there's a lot in the pipeline that's coming in for launch. We've mentioned skinning daggers before, and there are 5-6 of them of different materials, planned for the Gold Build. New bows, swords, axes, maces, spears, armors, arrows, resources, crafting materials, deities, trophies, and some secret things are all scheduled to come out in the final, launch build of the game.

We're back on the bi-weekly stream train over on our Twitch channel. If you missed it on Friday, you can find the VOD of our latest stream on YouTube. Friday's stream was very silly, and a little chaotic at times, but we definitely had fun with it. We plan to do more community focused streams in the future, spotlighting mods, doing a cool building project, Q&A's and more.

And that should be it for this week! Thank you so very much for reading, for continuing to support Conan Exiles and being a part of this amazing community.

Sincerely,

Funcom

Good afternoon, you galloping love fruit-bats. Here we are again, back with another newsletter!

We've finalized our roadmap and development milestones for the final stretch of the Early Access process, meaning we're now barreling towards the endgame. On said roadmap are things like the combat revamp, additional items, content revamp and a host of other goodies we'll share on stream and in these newsletter in the coming months.

The volcano and jungle will become available at launch, whereas the new combat paradigm will definitely roll out on PC before May 8th. Project Content Rebalance will hopefully make it to PC players pre-launch, but may be moved back depending on when the work is finished.

Following up on what we mentioned last week, we have now moved into a crunch period to get everything ready and finalized for physical discs, aka "The Gold Build". This is the build what will be on the discs you buy in a store. It's a fully functional game that players can pick up and play without the need for an Internet connection. We can't assume that people will patch, since not everyone has Internet access 24/7, so this build needs to be stable and contain everything players expect. From a bug-fixing perspective it means prioritizing serious bugs that block player progress

The submission and certification process runs through January and February and the Gold Build needs to be locked in and ready for print about 6-8 weeks before full launch. The reason for this is that printing physical discs happens in one location, while packaging the physical editions takes place in a different location. Only certain printing houses are authorized to print console discs, so we have to work around their capacity and lead time requirements. On PC things are more relaxed. There's more flexibility in terms of where the discs are printed.

Once the Gold Build is approved the devteam will switch focus to the day 1 patch for PC and consoles. The day 1 patch will include less critical fixes as well as some content changes which did not make it into the Gold Build. If you're interested in reading more about Day 1 Patches there's a great blog post from Rami Ismail on the topic over on Kotaku.

Early Access players on PC will continue to see some patches and updates, albeit somewhat less frequently. For Xbox players it means there won't be an Update 32 Parity Patch until March at the earliest. Once the submission and certification process begins Microsoft doesn't allow us to add anything to the current Game Preview version of the game. We apologize for not being able to release this patch sooner, and thank you for your patience.

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.



Hey, would you look at that! Two-handed swords! These are scheduled to come out at launch, and players can craft them out of Stone, Iron, Steel, Hardened Steel and Starmetal. Much like the hammers, they're big and heavy, taking a long time to swing, but also deal a lot of damage once they connect to an opponent.



Secondly, sprinting with weapons and tools is back! This was removed a while back, partly in order to deal with lag jousting, where players would use server latency to win combat encounters. The other reason was to highlight the difference between being in and out of combat. Sprinting away from an encounter is the defining factor that differentiates being in, or out, of combat. However, after both taking your feedback into account and seeing that lag jousting is essentially eliminated with the new combat paradigm, we're making it so you can sprint with weapons and tools again.

We fired off a second combat playtest on Friday, with a ton of changes and updates from the previous test (like sprinting with weapons!). There's still experimentation going on in terms of stamina management, health regeneration and damage numbers, but we're steadily moving towards a version that we think will be balanced and fun, and once we are at that stage we will deploy to Testlive servers to hear your feedback and suggestions!

Vanguard's main task at the moment is getting builds ready for certification, making sure they meet all the necessary requirements set by Microsoft and Sony. Pretty much everything from stability, branding, GUI consistency and responsiveness have certain requirements that we need to hit. This is to ensure that the experience on Xbox and PlayStation is more consistent across all games than on PC, where it's more up to each individual developer.

In addition to this one of our Vanguard designers has finished up work on the new perk system, which will add improvements and modifiers to your character based on how you've levelled up your Attributes. Examples include things like a double jump skill, better stamina consumption, quicker healing, and now, a ricochet shot, for all you Hanzo mains out there.

They've also shown the system for dying and respawning some needed love in order to improve the experience for players. Player corpses should now reload better after a server crash, which had some inconsistencies in the past. Death Markers should also be less prone to breaking. NPC and player corpses now have different expiry times, and they've added a neat little glowing green light that emanates from your character's bracelet when they die.

Last, but certainly not least, is a quick loot GUI to help you take things from players and NPCs much quicker than before.

The Terraformers have been wrapping up the final bits of content they need to get wrapped up for the Gold Build. We've talked extensively about the volcano and jungle already, so we'll leave those out for a bit this time and talk about some other stuff!

Project Content Rebalance has been going well so far and we got to experience a sample of the changes during the Friday combat playtest. This rebalance involves tweaking the NPC population and resource nodes in order to provide a more diverse and challenging experience to players. Being used to the previous "shotgun approach" to NPCs and resources the game definitely felt different, but in a positive way. Creatures and NPCs were sparser, which made meeting other humans feel more special, like the Exiled Lands really were a place only the strongest can survive.

In terms of new content there's a lot in the pipeline that's coming in for launch. We've mentioned skinning daggers before, and there are 5-6 of them of different materials, planned for the Gold Build. New bows, swords, axes, maces, spears, armors, arrows, resources, crafting materials, deities, trophies, and some secret things are all scheduled to come out in the final, launch build of the game.

We're back on the bi-weekly stream train over on our Twitch channel. If you missed it on Friday, you can find the VOD of our latest stream on YouTube. Friday's stream was very silly, and a little chaotic at times, but we definitely had fun with it. We plan to do more community focused streams in the future, spotlighting mods, doing a cool building project, Q&A's and more.

And that should be it for this week! Thank you so very much for reading, for continuing to support Conan Exiles and being a part of this amazing community.

Sincerely,

Funcom