Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Preview

IGN has put together a quick write-up for Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer, based on what they saw of Funcom's newly announced expansion pack at GamesCom.
Khitai is accessed through a gate in the Great Wall that shuts the region off from the rest of Hyboria. The wall itself represents a few new ideas on the way the world is put together. First, things have opened up a bit with wider vistas and fewer barriers. In fact, there are no fast-travel NPCs here and players can see through the loading barriers into neighboring zones. Many are dominated by massive features like the Great Wall, which are intended to give players a point of reference in this strange land.

Each zone will have two separate factions competing with each other and the player will be forced to choose who they want to ally with. The choice of how you ally yourself in these areas carries profound consequences, from the types of armor and weapons you'll be able to buy to the types of places you can visit and the types of story content you'll encounter. It's particularly satisfying that none of the choices are obviously good or bad and there are factors that pull the players' sympathies in multiple directions. Is it right, for instance, to help a legitimate ruler gain power if he plans to misuse it? Or is it okay to oppose the good works of dedicated monks whose only crime is hating Conan? The player will have to figure out where their own alliances lie and may even find it necessary to betray a faction once they find out what its true agenda is.