Age of Conan Update Adds Pit Master’s Arena, Game Director Letter

In addition to sending us a press release today revealing how Age of Conan players can now “fight for glory against each other or summon their pets for epic monster battles in The Pit Master’s Arena”, Funcom’s official website for the MMORPG has been updated with a letter penned by game director “Tilty” on what this new feature brings to the game. The letter goes into much greater detail on the new content, so I’ll quote from that:

It took me a bit longer than anticipated to give you that long awaited update regarding the content updates of AoC for 2016, so let’s not waste any more time and dive right into it.

We have spent the last few months working out the kinks on a brand new PvE and PvP feature, the Pit Master’s Arena. We’re excited to release this feature today!

Inside the arena, you will get to test your fighting skills against one boss monster or against another player while a live crowd is watching you. Make it bloody to entertain your audience!

You will be able to access this new underground battle ring from the Field of the Dead. Once inside, talk to one of the arena masters to join a game. This will book you a spot in the arena. When your turn is up, you will be automatically teleported to the center of the arena and the next three minutes will be yours to defeat your opponent.

The Gladiator (PvE) Queue will let you fight off a full size version of the pets you have collected. The rarity level of the pet defines the rank of the encounter and its difficulty.

The Pit Fighter (PvP) queue will let you face another player in 1v1, to the death, combat.

There are two versions of the Pit Master’s Arena: A smaller scale version in which you can practice against the most common “monster-pets” without having to wait as long for your turn, and a larger scale version where you’re able to PvP or fight more dangerous monster-pets to advance through the higher faction ranks.

The public version is instanced and is currently capped at 30 players to ensure a good flow of fights and prevent queues from being too long. You can navigate through different instances using instance selection near the area’s entrance.

The battle arena also introduces two new factions, The Gladiators for PvE and the Pit Fighters for PvP. Each faction offers a range of new rewards including pets, runes, equipment, and even some exotic faction-specific mounts!