Age of Conan Director Reveals Plans for DreamWorld Engine
Fresh from implementing the Rise of the Godslayer expansion last month, Age of Conan Game Director Craig Morrison talked to players about upgrading the DreamWorld graphics engine, and how this will enable his team to create better visuals in the future.
The DreamWorld engine supports the Age of Conan virtual world, serving as its backbone for special effects and other graphics optimization features. Mr. Morrison said the next iteration of the Dreamworld engine will improve the gaming platform and boiled down the benefits to three points in his latest June newsletter addressed to players:
1. Improved performance
One of the main goals of the engine upgrade is to make Age of Conan run as beautifully as it paints the landscapes of Khitai. Rendering, network latency, and server CPU output may all get a boost once Dreamworld engine 2.0 goes up and running.
2. New tech features
Upcoming features like deferred lighting will also be enabled by the more robust Dreamworld engine. Mr. Morrison did not elaborate more on this, pointing out instead that such integration cycles opens up possibilities to the game, graphics-wise.
3. Improved back-end tools for developers
The upgrade will also facilitate better and more efficient content production.
“[W]e will get expanded tools that allow us to do our cut-scenes easier and put more into them, which the team can then use in the future to give the key new encounters they create a little more of a cinematic feel,” Mr. Morrison said.
Game developers work under a set infrastructure and use tools to create content, and he said these will likely be expanded with the enhanced DreamWorld engine. Public test servers should see this new integrated version by late summer, but expect the test cycle to be longer than usual due to the “highly complex code integration” involved.