The latest outlook on planned updates and changes from the Game Director Craig Morrison . 

With the latest game update launched and on the live servers I thought it was a good time to catch up with you all and let you know what is on the horizon for the coming game updates and give you all a general status update.

With the new PVP systems now in place and Ymir's Pass now available for you to explore we move on to the next major additions to the game. I'll talk a little about the immediate plans for the next update as well as covering the things you can expect to see relatively early next year.

We are now preparing to take the DirectX 10 version of the game from our internal testing servers out to the public test servers, so you can see it for yourselves. The next major game update will include this version of the game and make it available for everyone with the appropriate hardware to enjoy. Since the outset we have been determined that the new DirectX 10 functionality would not just be a 'gimmick' addition to the game and would add visual quality to the game, we feel that the version we are preparing now for testing does achieve this and in a way that will find the right balance between visuals and performance. We have also gone to great lengths to try and make virtually all the DirectX10 features customizable so that you can find the right balance between features for the performance level of your hardware. What we did not want to do was push this version out too early and not see the real added benefits this technology can bring. I am really looking forward to players getting to experience some of the new visual improvements that this new technology allows. It really brings an even further splendor to the game world.

Keep your eyes out for the announcement of when the update will hit the public test servers so that you can try it out for yourselves!

In aoc gold of game content we will have two brand new dungeon locations in the next game update. Situated in Thunder River both will be aimed at maximum level players. The Slaughter House Cellar is a single player level 80 instance and Xibaluku is a large team instanced dungeon aimed at the same level range. Xibaluku has a great series of new and interesting boss encounters spanning several hours of game-play. We will start to show a little more of these dungeon areas as we start to release press material for the next update shortly. Filling some of the content gaps as the highest level is one of the areas we are focusing on at the moment, and these dungeons are the start of that process.