Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The Age of Conan Almanac ~ Answers to your Questions!
AmazingAvery
Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188
Age of Conan Almanac:
Release Date: MAY 20th 2008
Official Site: www.ageofconan.com
Rating: Mature Rating ~ N.America / PEGI Europe ~ 18+
Archetype & Class List <Clicky
The Lore Section < Clicky
Official Media Section: Screenshots - Video - Audio - Wallpapers
PODCASTS / RADIO INTERVIEWS (Very Revealing Information):
90 minute Interview with Grenade Radio : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/153332
13 Minute Interview with Pwned Radio: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/152491
Interviews and Developer Profiles!
Clan of Conan > Newsletter Sign up! > Newsletter Archive! <
| Mounted combat in detail Rush into battle mounted on furious mammoths, or speed across rolling plains on horseback. It’s time we took a deeper look at mounted combat in Age of Conan! In a game where bloody, brutal and action oriented combat is held in such high regard, it seemed only natural for us at Funcom to make mounted combat equally as exhilarating. That meant going far beyond what other massive online games have done earlier. Including mounted combat in Age of Conan is actually a significant step forward for the whole genre. Usually, mounts in these types of games are only used for getting from one place to another as quickly as possible, and not at all for doing damage. Check some of the mount screenshots here! But in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures the value of a mount will extend far beyond being just a means of transportation. Whereas other massive online games will force you to dismount when fighting, Age of Conan allows you to stampede into battle mounted on anything from ferocious killer rhinos to noble steeds!When we set out to design the mount system we knew we had to do two things: create a certain feeling of depth and excitement, in addition to making it balanced and fair. Freedom of choice When you finally reach the required level to own and operate a mount in Age of Conan, there is a wide range of choices for you to make before you head out and buy one – and it goes well beyond just choosing what color you want it to be! In addition to choosing what type of mount you want (horse, mammoth, rhino and so on), you also need to choose between different variations of that mount. Each different type of mount has its own advantages and disadvantages. While the mammoth moves slowly, turns slowly and may be difficult to control, it can take a huge amount of beating. The horse, however, tends to be quick and easy to maneuver, but it will never stand up to the same amount of damage that the mammoth can take. There are also variations of each different mounts. Some horses are quicker than others, while others rely more on heavy armor. What you choose to go for not only depends on how much money you have, it also depends on how you want to actually play the game! Becoming one with your mount Heroic tales of Hyborian adventurers, who went through hell and came out on the other side with their trusted steed loyally by their side, are many and plentiful in the world of Conan. Becoming one with your mount is a necessary key to success. When riding into battle on a mount in Age of Conan you will gain various bonuses depending on the mount you’re using. If you’re using a mammoth, for instance, you will get a solid health bonus that will benefit you in battle. But remember, should you get killed while mounted your mount will die with you – and vice versa! The control system has been designed in such a way that your mount really feels like an extension of your own character, from the way it moves to the way some of them fights. “Some mounts have a certain acceleration rate, such as the mammoth,” explains Svein Erik Jenset, one of the designers on Age of Conan. “Riding forward on the mammoth you will actually see that its speed increases slowly, and when you tell it to stop it will not stop right away – it will start to slow down before it eventually stops.” Another case when you and your mount becomes one is while fighting. If you’re riding a horse you will actually have to swing your weapon yourself, trying to make impact. If you’re riding a mammoth on the other hand, it’s the mammoth that will do the fighting as it thrusts its giant tusks at the enemy! Machine of death Fighting while mounted is an art that can be challenging to master in Age of Conan. For instance, in order to maximize your damage output you need to actually ride quickly past your enemy and then hit – the faster you go the more damage you will do! Of course, this also requires you to know exactly when to let your sword go or you’ll miss completely. If you miss you will have to turn, and if you’re going fast you have to turn in a wide arc. And if you’re riding a mammoth even turning on the spot may take some time! There is a variety of weapons (such as lances) you can use while mounted, and you can even cast spells and shoot with ranged weapons such as various bow types, but there are also certain limitations in terms of which combos and what spells you can use. “You will have to evaluate each situation and see if it’s best ride into the battle or do it on foot,” says Gaute Godager, game director for Age of Conan. “Some mounts are really good camp breakers, while others can be used to actually crush entire buildings!” |
Recent Conventions (With Media):
Dragon*Con 2007:Dragoncon Presentation (Sept 16) - Stage6 Streaming 200mb
Dragoncon Pvp (Sept 16) - PVP-Long Stage6 Streaming - PVP-Short Stage6 Streaming
Female Model (Sept 15) - Stage6 Streaming.
GC 2007, Summary:
The Games Convention happened between 23. to 26. August 2007, in Leipzig/Germany ( Homepage )
Videos:
Fanvideo of the screenhots from the Funcom booth, Length 2:39 [ Link ]
4 Gamer's.net Video [ Link ]
Video-Interview with Tarib, German CM (german version) [ Link ]
Private video Demonologist in PvP [ Link ]
Private video Assassin-class in PvP [ Link 1 ] [ Link 2 ] [ Link 3 (Best quality) ]
Gamona-AoC video Assassin in PvP [ Link ]
Gamona video Babarian in PvP [ Link ]
Gamona video Guardian in PvP [ Link ]
Gamona video Bearshaman in PvP [ Link ]
Gamona video Herald of Xotli in PvP [ Link ]
Gamona video Demonologist in PvP [ Link ]
YouGamers siegebattle-presentation [ Low quality ] [ High quality ]
PCGames siegebattle-presentation [ Link ]
Gamona interviewed LordOrion. with siegecombat (high quality) [ Link ]
Gamona shows the dungeonpart of the presentation [ Link ]
Gamona shows the siegebattle-presentation [ Link ]
Funcom booth and gameplay [ Link ]
MMORPG.com shows the siegecombat-presentation [ Link ]
JeuxVideo plays Capture the flag new! [ Link ]
Media:
Official screen shot gallery from the Funcom booth
[ The start ]
[ First day ]
Buffed.de:
The "Throne" found also a place at the GC
LordOrion in action
LordOrion not in action...
Lord Orion not in action 2
But now Age of Conan in action!
Age of Conan in action, LordOrion is not...
"Capture the flag"-ruleset
TenTonHammer: (Concept Arts)
Polearm Halbard
Shield
Pict
Old Tarantia
Mamuth Armour
Mantis
Khemi Auctio House
Ilgergand
Half Giant Sorceror
Fire Demon
Gargoyle
Darkbeast
Ballista
Ancient Evil
Acheronian Warlord
Acheronian Warlord
Picture-Galery from the Age of Conan booth
Live-Interview "Gamers With Jobs" with Jason Stone [ Link ]
Jeux online-Interview with Crippius, French CM French Version English Version
Screenshot-gallery by allvater.com [ Link ]
Preview:
"Capture the flag"-blog by Buffed.de [ Link ]
Private impressions from SKELLETON [ Link ]
Private impressions from Sham Asar [ Link ]
Private impression from Obosi [ Link ]
Preview by PCGames, includes video and interview with LordOrion (preview german, video english)
[ Link ]
Preview by ingame.de (german) [ Link ]
Preview by Jeux Online (french) [ Link ] [ english version ]
Preview by IGN new! [ Link ]
Preview by Krawall.de (german) [ Link ]
Preview by GameStar (german) [ Link ]
New info:
E3 2007
- Watch it streaming (www.e3coverage.com)
- YouTube part 1 - part 2 - part 3 More E3 Videos at: http://www.ign.com/index/e3/2007/
- Streaming DivX (6Mbit stream based on HQ version)
- Gamespot Streaming SD flash player
- 720pHQ FTP-Download of the 25Mbit streaming HQ version
- Other versions on ftp.funcom.com FTP-URL, 720p, 480p, 480pHQ
- VG-Reloaded CAM of presentation, Streaming DivX
- VG-Reloaded Article & CAM Article with embedded Youtube
- http://au.media.pc.gamespy.com/media...d_2040357.html (5 gplay vids form gamespy)
- Sage to the Rescue (54Mb)
- The Undead At Large (66Mb)
- Magic Can Kill (57Mb)
- 3 vs. 1 (63Mb)
- Fighting Bare (63Mb)
- 5 gplay vids form gamespy
- Streaming Flash Gamespot interview: Jason Stone (Athelan)
- Streaming Flash Gametrailers Interview: Jørgen Tharaldsen & Jason Stone HD version
- Community site Article (friday update)
- Youtube version of POM clip
- FTP-Download of POM clip
- Streaming 720p DivX Slow motion Remix of POM clip
- Gamevideos Streaming Low Definition flash player - Two Handed - Barbarian
Remember the game is still in Beta, but as time progresses we still have a good understanding of how things will play out for a large percentage of game content.
Collision detection
Collision Detection is in the game. You can use collision detection to block other players in PvP. For example, a row of defenders blocking the entrance of a “Battlekeep”, to prevent the attackers to enter. Or too pressure another formation to somewhere else – maybe as a trap!
Fatalities
You CAN use fatalities in both PvE and PvP. Although, how graphical the PvP fatalities will be might depend on censorship laws of the country. How to deal with fatalities in PvP is something currently under discussion. They are usually instigated via a series of combinations and once you are at a certain level of accomplishment you will have a higher chance to pull one off.
Climbing
Climbing is still in the game and working. You can climb buildings and mountains. Only designated buildings you can climb. For example, there might a ladder, or some climbing foothold, or a special area designed particularly for climbing.
Mounted Combat
Still in and working. Can be used in both PvE and PvP apparently. We aren’t totally sure what type of weapons you can use though, and what if any feats are available to on the horseback. We do know and have seen, Polearms, Swords and Bows so far.
There are different ways you can deal with an NPC. Sometimes different paths /choices in a quest which may affect his future reactions to you. You could even attack the NPC and do other horrible things which can cause him to get angry at you. You do not get globally "bad" reputation for this however. The consequences are related to the NPC(s) you dealt with directly. FEB 1st Update: Here is a new developer diary containing relevant info: http://www.gamespot.com/video/927504/6183430/age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures-official-movie-6
Spellweaving and Soul Corruption:
Spellweaving is the integration of multiple spells either by the caster or within a group of casters to form a more powerful spell with multiple effects. If you abuse this though there are ramifications. We don’t know too much about Spellweaving just yet, with promised information on its way, same goes for the whole "hell" concept. FEB 1st Update: The Hell concept has been removed from the client due to poor feedback from beta testers and internal testers. People didnt like their team mates being sent to hell during gameplay and affecting everyone else. - esp on a raid. Spellweaving is still in the game will all other ramifactions of over use still in.
MMORPG.com's ScreenShot section (new ones!) http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setView/screens/gameID/191/setStart/1
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
Comments
You are awesome Avery. All the good info that i get on Conan usually starts off with something that you posted. Keep it up please, they should be paying you, or at least give you a free month or two.
Side note, i went to the Acolytes website yesturday and it is very well done. You guys appear to be well organized and im sure you will rock as a clan. Sadly i do not think that i would be a good applicant for your guild due to my playable hours due to RL, plus i like to solo a bit.
I hope to run into you guys in the world though. Just dont gank me.
)
Cool, that's a lot of info.
All quoted questions are from Athelan’s (Dev’s) Blog.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=24625
Mage
A lich is a melee casting hybrid, he has some spells but he will be using them in melee range.
Well the Necromancer and the Demonologist are not really alike besides the fact they are both mages with lots of ranged spells. I can see how you could consider the Lich and Herald of Xotli to be more similar but their differences primarily lie in the effects of their combo's and their spells and how those work together.
I think it will likely depend on the context, the soldier based classes will still have an edge but the Heralds and Liches are front line classes.
Will there be special formations for Mages? ……..example a group of Demonologists get together and use their combined powers to invoke a giant Demon to smash the walls of the battlekeeps.
This was one of the ways we wanted to see formations be used in Conan; ritualised magic we think is very Conanesque
Priest
We have added one "burst" heal to the priests so they can save someone's life in a clutch situation in case the heal over time is too slow. But this makes the player immune to burst healing for a period to prevent direct heal spamming as a tactic.
We intentionally have avoided anyone being a healbot, however any of the priests should fit your desire for being in a support role. Probably slightly more Priest of Mitra or Scion of Set as opposed to the more nuke heavy Stormcaller/Druid or the melee heavy Bear Shaman
Scions of Set do not turn into a snake and chomp away. Each one of the priest classes has its particular methods of offense. No one class is stuck being a healbot, in fact healers as a whole in Conan are not meant to healbot.
They might be able to wield a sword, but it would be sort of silly for them to do so. Given even level of player skill a level 50 priest should easily kill a level 40 soldier.
The Dark Templar does not have much healing. The Bear Shaman would probably be the most like that, possibly a Conqueror but they don't heal either but they have buffs that help with tanking.
Neither the Bear Shaman or Scion of Set are full poly-morphers. Their being imbued with the energies of their totem creature if you will are presented in other ways.
Some of this is in discussion internally. Personally I do not have much of a problem with it either way, but I can see the point about it not being good for someone to only have one class available to them as an archetype. If we did that and the Dark Templar also that people discuss then Stygians could choose to be soldiers or priests but they would not really have any choices. It's mostly a matter of protecting the player from being shoehorned into a direction that maybe they don't want to go and losing the ability to choose.
Rogue
Rangers have some but very little melee, it is not the focus of their class
can rangers duel weild
Rangers use 1h because they get shields.
We try to take inspiration from the other games that have inspired us by the way they played for the various classes. No Rangers will not have combo's the same as melee, but they will have a unique system combining the ability to quickly fire off attacks, with stacking stances, and extra tricks that can exploit enemy weaknesses.
Multiple rangers could overlap their volleys to make a kill zone.
Probably not. Better to spoil his shot to begin with.
Conqueror and Guardian are soldier based classes and have access to heavier armor, so yes Barbarian has lower defensive ability.
Stormcaller/ Druid has quite a few area of effect spells and is probably one of the most mage like of the priests. Herald of Xotli has always had quite a few area of effects but these are primarily spell abilities and player based. The Barbarian of course now post merge has the choice, but the two handed swinging Barbarian is still meant to be taking advantage of his weapons reach and arc.
Assassins focus on daggers and will find them most effective.
All classes will get it I believe but they might not be able to climb as much or as quickly as a rogue
Soldier
As well, probably not, good enough probably yes. The whole dynamics are quite different in Conan so its a bit hard to say.
Much like the healers, we have tried to keep one class from being the niche tank class so no one feels stuck. The Guardian will tank slightly better simply because he has full plate armor, but the others should be viable.
Maybe if it was a reaaaally long weapon but in general I don't think so
Combat
Even if I explained it, it wouldn't be enough to convey what it is you are really asking for, so there is no real point in doing so rather than letting people see it themselves as we continue through Beta.
It's all a matter of tradeoffs, you could train more than one weapon line but what do you want to give up to be able to do that?
You could climb to try and flee but it wont be as fast as running and you can be knocked off
This has been covered numerous times on the forums. The blocking is not done real time, but the combat system is designed to simulate those actions to still keep the depth of block and parry/counter attack type actions.
There are poison based dot's, direct damage, and buffs. Assassins are the primary poison users, and also the Scion of Set.
Potions work as over time effects so you cannot spam use them. Potions are pretty common items and expected for people to want to use them, by being common it will be normal for you to have rather than an exception providing an advantage.
I hope so, I keep nagging about it but other things are of more critical importance.
This can vary greatly both spell to spell, and crossbow vs xbow etc. It's also very likely to be tweaked during beta so giving a number would be rather fruitless
Hmm. We have a few classes that might be what you want. The Guardian for example has access to some really cool counterattacks and can specialize in performing these. While the Assassins tend to utilize more of the evasive moves dodging to the side etc to great effect.
We are not certain as to what the final representation of opponent vulnerability will be but we want to represent the strengths and weaknesses of the targets defenses to the player. (The direction attacks come from matters)
Sort of? We use a combination of systems but we track hitboxes for things like where arrows hit.
I am not positive on this but I think the size of the character will impact collision sphere.
Fatalities are based around weapon type and tied to combo's. When a combo is going to kill the target you can potentially get a fatality. Think of it almost like a critical finishing blow that completely decimates your opponent.
We have experimented with this to a certain regard, we allow for some auto correction of facing but it is not a hard lock that will auto circle strafe for you. It is very possible for a target to still move out of your cone if you are not maintaining it yourself. The soft lock makes minor corrections and helps you orient the center of your cone on your soft selected target that is in the cone. You do not soft lock onto a target that leaves the cone.
Subject to change wildly during beta until we find the right balance. Some combos, and some feats, and maybe even some fun items could modify this value as well.
Priority is just that, mounted combat is very important to us, but we have to do other things first. To use a terrible pun, "You can't put the cart before the horse" and the same way we need the other aspects of combat to be to levels of polish before we work on mounted simply because its *more* important.
I'm not going to answer this one in much detail because it is subject to change but I will say that we are more pro having the control be simpler than lots of funky pet control stuff. Pets are cool but the game should still be about playing your character.
We ditched the idea of relics/totems/idols as primary focus because we did not want to make it so they could not melee if they wanted to.
One of the reasons why we have used primarily heal over times for healing is because we want people playing these classes to have time to do other things as well, like nuke, or perform melee combo's and the like.
While we do not intend to make any class including priests as overpowered as a doctor in AO with complete heals and offence, we do not want them relegated to just standing and casting heals either.
General
It's quite a mix, most major outdoor areas are not instanced or not instanced in the classical sense of the word.
Yes, Stygians will head to Khemi, Cimmerians to Broken Leg Glen, and Aquilonians to Tarantia.
We have not changed our goals as far as offering the first 20 levels without subscription as far as I am aware, we have merely listened to the communities desire to want to play together sooner.
Possibly
Sometime in the future I imagine. Winning a contest gets you a spot in line, you still have to get to the front to get "in", and how fast the line moves will depend on beta progress
Quote:
The armor appearances are not specially restricted, a Cimmerian can wear Stygian styled armor if he so wishes.
I can't really as I am primarily working with gameplay mechanics and such and this is a very lore/quest related content question.
We tend to like to make stereotypical characters in screenshots, not too many "pretty boys" running around in Hyboria but I think you'll find something satisfactory.
As far as dyeing I am not sure, its easy to make stuff look like crap when its dyed because it only works well on stuff with grey scale. Most all of our armor is stylish but more realistic. I don't forsee it ever really going "cartoony"
I think that there will be some quests that do not revolve around combat. I am not a quest designer though so I can't say for certain what is there but we have a very talented team.
Yes, we plan to have multiple group or "raid" dungeons and events in Conan
Most flora that is larger than small bushes or grass has collision. I do not know if specifically what exact stuff you are referring to however so I cannot answer this for certain.
Conan will have localized versions but as to which languages will recieve translations will probably be decided by Eidos
We got rid of faction pretty early because we almost universally agreed factions and faction grinding is often one of the least fun parts of the MMO's we had played. Choices rather than your class/race will have more impact on how you are viewed by different NPC's
I am not a quest designer, and do not work on what we call the Destiny quests so I cannot really answer this with certainty. We have lots of standard MMO type quests, these are important for leading people to content and giving people direction. The destiny quest has much more planning put into it, I would not expect it to have branching paths or different "endings" for example but I know that it is quite different for different classes.
You trigger the stealth ability and based on your skill and the darkness level of the area you succeed, and anyone around you gets a chance to make a perception check vs your skill vs them and the light in the area
In general the world will not be entirely instanced. It is a mix, we believe strongly in the use of it to augment gameplay by allowing parties some private areas to adventure in but also areas that are shared to give a greater feeling of cohesiveness and permanence to the world.
The world of Hyboria is quite large but the area's represented in the initial release will not include everything. It's a bit hard to make size comparisons and the like but I can say that we have tried to keep the feeling of vista's and the magnificence of mountains in the distance while still accomplishing areas that feel more interesting and intimate.
There are different methods of loot distribution, ranging from need/greed, round robin, free for all etc. I believe when a chest drops it can have items for more than one person if in a party and rare items can still be rolled for, but I am not absolutely positive.
There are armors in the game that are similar in appearance or style to many of the historical armors of armies such as Rome. Such is the nature of the broad reaching and time spanning backgrounds of the people of Hyboria.
As far as an automated macro or something of the like, no, not at this time.
Mounts are capable of having all the differences that NPC's or players have, and we have the possibility of having different variants and even of armor. However, this is not a priority in my opinion when it comes to initial launch. Yes we do have different mounts, and as to Camels, I am not sure exactly what the differences will be yet. Most of these things will be decided and change greatly during beta.
Probably not. Conan's UI will be customizable but we do not have time to develop a UI toolkit simultaneously with the game.
The feat system is not like World of Warcraft's talent trees. There are some lines, and prerequisites for training various feats but it is more integral to your entire character advancement than it is simply a layer of customisation.
Guilds
There are some permissions regarding city building. I do not know the specifics.
Guilds can only have one keep. If you had two and you merged you would lose one.
PvP
Question: anyone know if FFA PVP and rp-pvp is the same thing?
Athelan: they would be the same as far as server sets, but a pvp server would not have the RP restrictions
Question: what restrictions?
Athelan: The RP ruleset or whatever for guidelines regarding conduct
Question: so you can get attacked anywhere on a rp-pvp server?
Athelan: Anywhere but hubs, whats the point of having a RP PvP server if you cant choose when you can attack people.
Question: Hubs = cities?
Athelan: yes like Tarantia
Question: so the servers are the same... but in RP you cant attack each other in cities?
Athelan: No, its the same on both servers, the differences are in the roleplaying, or lack thereof.
Question: Which server will be the one where people are only attackable in the Borderlands?
Athelan: normal servers
And posted today : http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=42644
Today, 11:01:53
As far as myself and Jayde are aware at this time there have been no changes as far as cutting PvP servers, and Gaute and myself (and Jayde and probably many others) all agree that RP does not exist in Conan without PvP.
So in short as far as we know, we should still be looking forward to RP PvP servers.
Just so you know PvP and RP PvP servers would be identical as far as code, the difference would the added presence of the RP guidelines that will be composed by Customer Service.
All PvP servers in Conan are by default "free for all" because we do not impose sides.
We do not have official plans of special ruleset looting PvP servers yet, as stated before we were looking at ways of working looting in but that is not final nor is where it would be deployed if it came to be.
We are playing with the idea to publish the best 10-20 PvP Players of each server on the internet each month, and we are thinking about possibilities to reward them in game as well.
First of all there are points and you climb up the ladder, but there might be some kind of prestige stuff, it might be that on the road to King Conan’s Palace, statues of the best 20 players of last week will be placed, these will be visit able, so you can click on them and see who was among the best – that’s just an idea, that’s not yet in game, but with such ideas we are playing with at the moment.
It might be as well a Death Match – in which the best 10 will be brought to the arena at a specific time and will fight each other. The last one standing will get a special item or a special rank, with all these things we are playing a bit, when its clearer you will get an update!
~ TARIB ~ Community Manager (German)
Quote:
It seems blatantly simple to me.
Blood Money = Coin loot
What makes Blood Money unique is that it can be controlled separately from the other coin in the economy
No we won't have usergroups with permissions including if you can fight them inside your own guild etc. We will be looking at ways for you to be able to mess around with PvP however.
If they are friendly flagged the npc's will not be effected, if they were neutral they might. There is no friendly fire as it is too exploitable.
I would venture to say the primary reasons for their win were co-ordination that allowed dynamic alterations in tactics to exploit mistakes by the enemy, of which these mistakes where their fatal fall. They failed to adapt and were beaten.
If your opponents don't have tactics, don't co-ordinate, and basically don't know how to play of course you could beat the "impossible" odds especially if you were using the world to your advantage, splitting them up, etc etc. I was saying that in regards to a reasonably even level opponents or at least a competent foe. If you know what you are doing a very small group can be very potent.
Well.... this is somewhat solved by the fact you have to control something nearby in order to respawn nearby. So a co-ordinated battle wont just have people running back one at a time unless they are stupid :P
Possibly
It is tied to the storyline in the Border Kingdoms, as to mechanical effects of said relationship, we shall see.
The problem is that it felt very artificial to have an open PvP area and then make it not open PvP during a siege. Yes it is possible for people to gang up, guilds cannot share ownership of a keep, but guilds can merge together to form stronger guilds capable of holding keeps. Since a guild can only hold one keep if an alliance is capable of taking them separately they are better off doing that anyway.
Hubs is wear squishy collision will be. In PvP you will need to use things like knockback to literally shove them out of your way.
That is terribly contrived and I am against it. I understand your wanting to even the playing field when faced with a larger group but having people be locked out is just silly. If you want to take on a larger group then find ways of splitting them up into defeatable bite sized pieces.
Using the term Siege, or Massive PvP and then the term "instance" or "population cap" seems wrong to me. So the answer is yes, I do not want to limit the number of people artificially. The problems with Shadowbane I had as a player were not from the number of people but the unplayability of the game with that number of people and the lack of collision etc which made "stacking" the uber tactic in many situations. So it's more about how we are able to handle the lots of players in the area rather than locking them out.
If we are talking time frame for the whole group? Are we talking about individual deaths? Focus fire? etc I would imagine that 100 vs 100 would be a pretty epic fight that would take some time to resolve the battle.
That's hard to say until everything comes together, however it is my belief that a co-ordinated group of 5 could easily take out a not so good group of 7-8-9 maybe even 10. My experience has been that in PvP voice communication and Organization and tactics make huge leaps in combat effectiveness unless facing more than 2 to 1 odds at which point the numbers sort of become overwhelming.
Technical Aspects
**Age of Conan is currently optimised for Dual Core processors and Quad Core optimisation is in process.**
You can bind the keys however you like but moving with the keys and using numpad makes it so you can no longer mouse look which is why we moved it. Its far better feeling just using q,1,2,3,e with the other hand on the mouse for me.
I am kind of torn on this, because 1) People usually prefer to use their own solution 2) Not everyone likes to use voice 3) I hate voice solutions in public areas (See Kids on like Xbox Live) 4) There is no point in doing your own solution unless it matches the features of the 3rd party apps 5) then you have to support the voice stuff also.
You can do this if you like, it won't break game-play.
Not that I am aware of.
I would not say there would be an advantage or disadvantage, it is more preference.
I don't know where all we will have servers.
I am not really sure how to impress people with the engine, I just know personally that I find the world amazing, and the characters keep getting cooler. Some things like sliding happen in various situations in any game especially online, and with over 2000 animations on the character the complexity is way up there. We have had loads of people on screen before and it wasn't really an issue.
Most buffs are for your group. There are a few friendly in area spells. There is an in game raid interface GUI and system. We can change the limits but right now we want to keep them in the 20-30 range maximum.
I have no idea, that’s an audio coder question
I don't know. I would not be surprised? It could be cool, but beyond that just being my opinion its not something I have dealt with.
I think I already answered this when I said I don't know if we will have Oceanic servers or where all there will be servers hosted.
I don't know could be a coder ninja did this already
We will support different base set-ups.
"FPS" "WoW" etc so people can find something comfortable to them to start with and then start customising.
Xbox Live has chat built into it, so that is no problem. Personally, I do not advocate making a in game chat system because unless you can provide all the features of ventrilo or teamspeak people are not going to utilise it anyway. People who want to use voicechat will go to the trouble of setting up whichever one their group will use, and a lot of people don’t want to use voice even if it is an advantage.
We want to have FFA PvP servers and I have designed around supporting them. (They are currently in!)
If you use the appropriate settings you should be fine for framerate, connection wise unless you have a terrible connection I don't think it would be a big problem either.
It really depends on how bad your lag is. A little bit of latency does not effect the game much. Even with the more action approach to combat you need pretty serious lag to really make a big difference.
This involves a lot of variables and is something we cannot say one way or the other yet.
A lot of us in the office are G15 users both at home and work, so I would not be surprised if we do something with it, as to what I do not know.
*Updated 2/11/07*
Character development in detail:
(Above: A defensive stance on the left, attacking stance on the right.)
(Above: a Barbarian's combo bar.)
……..
Want to know more?
Developer Quote Search (search left side with key words): www.bymitra.com
wiki - http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Official Site Archetype & Class List: http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/static/classlist/
Lore: The Lore Section
More to see: AoC Official Media Section
*UPDATED MARCH 5th 2008*
RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE
28.02.08 — Video interview with Jason Stone on TTH
26.02.08 — COMPILED COVERAGE FROM GDC 2008 #2
25.02.08 — Video interview with Gaute Godager on TTH
22.02.08 — Video interview with Erling Ellingsen on TTH
19.02.08 — GDC 2008 preview on Jeuxvideo.fr (French)
19.02.08 — GDC 2008 preview on Jeuxvideo.com (French)
19.02.08 — GDC 2008 interview on Gamekult (French)
19.02.08 — GDC 2008 preview on Gamekult (French)
16.02.08 — COMPILED COVERAGE FROM GDC 2008 #1
15.02.08 — Video interview of Gaute Godager on GameSpot
13.02.08 — Class interview #7: The Bear Shaman on TTH
05.02.08 — Voted “Most Anticipated of 2008” on JeuxOnline
05.02.08 — Class interview #6: The Ranger on TTH
24.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Multiplayer (Italy)
14.01.07 — Age of Conan report from CES07 on IGN
14.01.07 — Age of Conan report from CES07 on Joystiq
14.01.07 — Age of Conan report from CES07 on Gamespy
14.01.07 — Age of Conan report from CES07 on Massively
14.01.07 — Age of Conan report from CES07 on Voodoo Extreme
11.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on PC Games (Germany)
09.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on PC Action (Germany)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Mpogd
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on ShackNews
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Voodoo Extreme
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Fragzone (Sweden)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on PZ Zone/CVG (UK)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Eurogamer (UK)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article VideoGamer (UK)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on JeuxVideo (France)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on JeuxVideoPC.com (France)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on 3DJuegos (Spain)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Vandal (Spain)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Meristation (Spain)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Onlinewelten (Germany)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Gamona (Germany)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on GamesWelt (Germany)
08.01.07 — Hands-on preview article on Eurogamer (Germany)
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on Gamona (Germany)
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on WarCry
17.12.07 — Preview videos available on GameTrailers
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on GameSpy
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on GameSpot
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on IGN
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on Mmorpg.com
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on Curse Gaming
17.12.07 — Hands-on preview article on Allakhazam
13.12.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen on Mondes Persistants
10.12.07 — Mitra's Method: The Year That Was
10.12.07 — Assassin class preview on TenTonhammer
04.12.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen on GamingEye
27.11.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen on ITPro (Norwegian)
27.11.07 — Video developer diary #4 on GameSpot
26.11.07 — Feature interview on the Conqueror class
23.11.07 — Editorial on WarCry
13.11.07 — Hyborian story #1 on GameStar (English & German)
13.11.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen on GameStar (German)
12.11.07 — Interview with Jørgen Tharaldsen on QJ
12.11.07 — Feature interview on the Guardian class
12.11.07 — Editorial on WarCry
07.11.07 — Interview at IGN with Gaute Godager (part 2)
02.11.07 — Interview at IGN with Gaute Godager (part 1)
29.10.07 — Jørgen Tharaldsen speaks on the Dark Templar class
29.10.07 — Jason Stone speaks to Überguilds Radio
26.10.07 — Mitra's Method on WarCry
17.10.07 — Age of Conan featured on GIGA TV (German)
17.10.07 — Erling Ellingsen presents the game in Tromsø (German)
16.10.07 — Age of Conan in USA Today
15.10.07 — All new Age of Conan screenshots
09.10.07 — German CGI video available (German)
25.09.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen (French)
24.09.07 — Interview with Jørgen Tharaldsen
24.09.07 — Interview with Jørgen Tharaldsen
17.09.07 — Interview with Jason Stone
10.09.07 — GC preview on DemoNews (German)
06.09.07 — GC preview on Onlinewelten (German)
06.09.07 — GC preview on ComputerBild (German)
06.09.07 — GC preview on MMORPG Planet (German)
03.08.07 — GC preview on EuroGamer
30.08.07 — GC preview on JeuxOnline (French)
27.08.07 — GC Preview on Mondespersistants (French)
27.08.07 — GC preview on TenTonHammer
27.08.07 — GC video interview with Erling and Jørgen
25.08.07 — GC preview on MMORPG
25.08.07 — GC preview on Allvatar
25.08.07 — GC preview on 4Gamers.net (Japanese)
25.08.07 — GC preview on PCGames (German)
25.08.07 — GC preview on GameStar (German)
24.08.07 — GC preview on Meristation (Spanish)
24.08.07 — GC preview on Vadejocs (Spanish)
24.08.07 — GC preview on InGame (German)
24.08.07 — GC video interview with Erling Ellingsen
24.08.07 — GC preview on Krawall (German)
24.08.07 — GC preview on YouGamers
24.08.07 — GC preview on Curse Gaming
24.08.07 — GC preview on IGN
23.08.07 — GC preview on Gameswelt (Swiss)
22.08.07 — GC preview on Buffed (German)
22.08.07 — GC preview on Exp (German)
20.08.07 — GC preview on Vandal (Spanish)
18.08.07 — E3 preview on GameVortex
18.07.07 — E3 preview on Grrlgamer
18.07.07 — E3 preview on 1UP
18.07.07 — E3 preview on GameTactics
18.07.07 — E3 preview on Joystiq
18.07.07 — E3 preview on GamersInfo
18.07.07 — E3 preview on WarCry
18.07.07 — E3 preview on MPOGD
18.07.07 — E3 preview on Team Xbox
18.07.07 — E3 preview on WorthPlaying
18.07.07 — E3 preview on GameZone
18.07.07 — E3 preview on Voodoo Extreme
18.07.07 — E3 preview on TenTonHammer
18.07.07 — E3 preview on MMORPG.com
17.07.07 — YouGamers reporting from EDF
17.07.07 — TVG hands-on preview
16.07.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen
16.07.07 — E3 preview on Gaming Today
16.07.07 — GamesRadar hands-on preview
15.07.07 — Interview with Erling Ellingsen
13.07.07 — E3 preview on RPGFan
13.07.07 — E3 preview on Destructoid
13.07.07 — E3 preview on Gamespot
13.07.07 — E3 preview on Kotaku
13.07.07 — E3 preview on The Escapist
13.07.07 — E3 preview on RPGamer
10.07.07 — EuroGamer hands-on preview
RECENT FRIDAY UPDATES
22.02.08 — Website content updates
15.02.08 — What’s up with beta (Redux)?
08.02.08 — Screenshots and Collector's Edition info!
25.01.08 — Community Event Q&A #1
18.01.08 — New official website launched!
11.01.08 — Screenshots and Collector's Edition info!
21.12.07 — And the winner is! - ME! lol sorry!
14.12.07 — New music available
07.12.07 — New trailer available
28.11.07 — New video developer diary
23.11.07 — Updates, updates, updates
16.11.07 — Postcards from Beta #2
09.11.07 — Making Keaira
26.10.07 — Postcards from beta #1: Silly hats only
19.10.07 — The women of Hyboria
12.10.07 — Server and beta update
05.10.07 — Interview with Elliot Kingdon
21.09.07 — Community Q&A #2
14.09.07 — The drinking cape
07.09.07 — Tales from DragonCon
31.08.07 — Community Q&A #1
21.08.07 — Live from Leipzig
AGE OF CONAN FAN SITES:
...and counting!
You can also check out the many Guild websites here
Oh, my, god...
I'm never going to need to look anything about this game up, ever again.
You win, Avery, you win.
You should make a PDF out of this and link it for download.
Rising Arms.
{{ Site | Forums | ">Recruitment }}
Rethaul, Dark Templar and squad leader of Scions of War
*UPDATED* APR 21ST 2008
One of the BEST pre-game communites around...
Age of Conan GUILDS
Listed from AoC Wiki : http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Guilds
Yours not submitted then just post here and I'll add it
Once we get a guild section on these forums I'll re post over.
ALL ORANGE LINKS TAKE YOU TO A GUILD DESCRIPTION AND FURTHER DETAILS AT AoC WIKIA
A
B
C
D
E
G
G cont.
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
S cont.
T
U
V
W
X
€
The Guild Hall itself can be found on the official forums here: http://forums.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php?f=17
Please see this thread too on official forums: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=20097
Short breakdown of those that have submitted what type of server playing on so far in this thread (more to come - lots more!): http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=43247
Links in Red writing.
Regular Guilds
US
Brotherhood of the Sacred Shadows - PVE, US server, Light RP and is optional.
Cerca Trova - PvE, regular US server. RP is completely optional, and will not be forced
Knights of Darkness - Regular guild on a US PvE server, focused on PvP and PvE.
Legion - PVE Guild - US PVE Server - Mature, Dedicated Raid Guild Focused on PVE Progression
Receipt Upon Death - Mature Regular guild on a US PvE server,Primary on PvE and PvP.
The Darkest Hour - Regular server. NA server.
The Free City of Lochlainn - Regular server. Two cities, on both EU and NA server.
The Old Timers Guild - Regular, US Server, 25+ years old persons only
EU
Anarchía - PvP/PvE Guild - EU Regular server - currently recruiting everyone
eu-tribe.net - A group forming an EU medicore tribe on a regular server to provide a theme for light Rpers and a group with ambitious aims.
SolidLine - A Regular European Guild for friendly, mature people.
Svart Lotus - EU, Standard Server. Primarily PvE and raiding, but also PvP raiding and sieging. GMT +1
The Black Knights - we are called The Black Knights and Eu based guild that are mercenaries.
The Free City of Lochlainn - Regular server. Two cities, on both EU and NA server.
TrueBlood - EU Social guild aiming towards fun both in PvE and PvP, will play on normal server most likley.
RP Guilds
Hour Of The Gods - RP Guild, US Server (But Accepting All). A Stygian only guild, focused heavily on RP.
PvP Guilds
US
Addiction - High end pvp and raiding. US PVP.
Axis - AXIS US PvP Guild: LF Hardcore PvP'rs!
Clan of the Mandrill - US PVP Server-PVP & Raid Team-Community & Camaraderie-avg age approx 28
Diva - small guild for carefully chosen players only (pr0's)
The Disciples - PvP. Raiding oriented guild w/ moderate pvp. North America Only.
Empyreans - The Empyreans are a group of dedicated players who will strive to be the best.
Krypteia - The Guild of Guilds: Play with your Clan, Bleed for your Brothers, and Conquer with Krypteia! North American PvP server
Lords of the Dead - Lords of the Dead- 13 years of Hardcore PvP success, US Server.
Oblivion Gaming - US PvP Guilds as a FFA Guild Powered by Live Gaming Engine ©2007 OblivionGaming.com
Population Control U.S PVP
Red Cell - US PVP-Gaming guild with roots from AC
Rising Arms - Straight FFA PvP. No RP what-so-ever.
The Divine Messengers - PvP server.
The Exodus Syndicate - 90 daily active members, 130 weekly. One guild, one goal: Domination
The Fremen Knights - US - FFA PvP - Fighting the Good Fight Since 1999
The Professionals, since 1999, FFA PvP.
Varangian Guard - PvP Guild, US Server. We will be enabling our European members to play with us.
Veritas Equitas U.S., a mature guild that strives in both PvE and PvP. Preference: PvP Server
EU
Anathema - Hardcore raiding both PvE and PvP (min 6 times a week). Maturity, respect, dedication and loyalty are ideals we live by
Epsilon Team - FFA PvP - European
Immortal Few - PVP server, we are a guild which focus on teamwork and we aim for around 80 members
Legio X Invicta - EU/PvP. We´re an Italian guild with 60 members at the moment.
Nidvardir - EU/PvP
RusCorp - PvP/EU server. ~150-200 members. The best PvP clan in Russia. (PVE when it's necessary)
The Soap Salesmen - PvP-server, Europe. Finnish PvP- and PvE-oriented guild with a superb attitude and a wicked sense of humour.
Vindication - PvP/PvE Guild - EU PvP server - serious raiding/PvP - currently recruiting
RP-PvP Guilds
US
Acolytes - NA Server, RPVP, RP Name Required, 17+ Age Requirement, Any ingame Race allowed, Multi mmo Guild.
Black Lotus - RPVP, NA server RP optional, accepting all nationalities.
Cult of The Serpent RP/PvP Server. RP/PvP, PvE Guild. Mature Stygian Based Guild.
Grey Order - NA (EU welcomed) friendly/serious RP guild joining RP-PvP server, based in Aquilonia (all races), RP required (beginners welcomed).
The Guardians- RP PVP US server
Hand of Set - A Stygian only guild on the RP-PVP server
Hope's Antagonists is a specialist Cimmerian rogues guild mainly in the US focusing on the RP/PVP server type.
Imperium - RPvP server located in the US, Light or Situational RP.
Redemption is a RP-PVP guild based in the US.
Ronins of Crom - A RP-PvP Clan LF Cimmerians.....We are currently accepting Blood Pledges
Sanguiphoria - RP-PvP (RP-guild that will join an RP-PvP server)RP Optional
Silver Wolf Clan - RP-PVP Guild. US Based. Our focus is group oriented for the best overall game experience.
Spawn of Akivasha - RP-PvP (US). Fun, easy-going RP guild (Vampire theme), all races/classes welcome.
The Murder Herd - MurderHerd is US-based, Serious PVP-RPers with a not so serious additude.
The Snowhawk Clan - A Cimmerian-only, lore-centric guild for the North American RP-PVP server type.
Varangian Order - Light RP focus with great PVP players in our guild already. In-depth guild ranks/awards system and fun play styles.
The Venarii - Aquilonian Only Rp-PvP guild US Server, EST. RP Required - beginners & veterans.
Virakar - Lore based PvP Guild, North American Server. While mostly NA there are several European and Asian members.
EU
Dark Desires: RP-PvP guild, European server. Adult players, female characters only, hardcore roleplaying pleasure workers of all kinds.
Defiance - RP/PvP, underground rebellion, encourages roleplay, solid Guild structure (check Guild Charter.)
Sons of Camulus - (SoC) RP-PvP European Only Guild, Strong PvE/PvP Focus & RP.
The Free Companions - RP-PvP/EU. Mercenary guild. Light roleplaying.
Titans of Hyboria - EU guild. Member of Hyborian Coalition. New guild and actively recruiting.
"If they are friendly flagged the npc's will not be effected, if they were neutral they might. There is no friendly fire as it is too exploitable."
That quote disturbed me a bit. Maybe you can answer my question Avery. If there is no friendly fire in the game (it was also mentioned in a video) then how is PvP going to work?
And thanks for the great post!
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Hi,
I think its in this video (mmorpg.com's) http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?GAMEID=191&SETVIEW=videos&VIDEOID=1098&bhcp=1
Where they explain it a little, from what I gathered, it would be too hard to put in friendly fire with regards to Siege fighting. Explosions caused by say a trebuchet might affect so many people that the computations would not be feasible in an mmo of this nature. Having to calculate trajectory, damage out put and then calculate all of that including debris would be too difficult in real time, on such a scale. Besides, when I think about it a bit further I'm not sure if I would like it, say in a siege the opposition bombards your "keep" gates and everytime you go to get them you get creamed for "insta kill" via siege weapon - it would be best to keep things flowing imo.
This could quite be possible in a single player rpg but I've never heard of it on the scale proposed (150 people potentially)
I don't think its too big a deal that friendly fire in general PvP wont be in, I've been playing Guild Wars since release and I know my team mates wouldn't like it if I dropped an AoE spell on a foe they were fighting if it would effect them. It would make big nuke spells like that not worth it, when sometimes they can be the most fun
Same with ranging and general casting, because the system is directional and not "Auto Attack" my spells and arrows would have to be mightly accurate. Seems just too much trouble to me.
Hope this helped!
Thanks for the quick response, Avery.
But it didn't really answer my question. Let me rephrase it.
Lets say we are on an RP PvP server. Characters A and B are adventuring together. Characters X and Y attack us, while we are fighting character Z comes along to help us.
Now, the way I'm understanding it, there is no friendly fire. So that means that I can not hit someone in my own group, but I can hit anyone else on a FFA (or RP) PvP server (correct me if I am wrong) with an AOE attack. So character A, who is a Barbarian, swings at characters X and Y but accidentally hits character Z as well.
I'm just looking for clarification on if that is how it's going to work.
Now for a larger example.
During a Siege battle there are 10 groups of players attacking and 10 groups defending. What makes it so I can only attack the defending players and not accidentally attack the attacking players?
This is the part that is confusing me. Without friendly fire, it seems like you either would not be able to attack ANY other players, or ALL other players.
I just don't understand what distinguishes friend from foe, especially with the mercenaries.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I think in a full on Siege there would be the two opposing groups inclusive of merc's would be aligned with each side from the get go. Or if Merc's are requested they can only do damage to the opposing side if they came late into the battle (I think there is an option for that) So the Mercs would be tied into either the attacking side (the side who plants the "war tent") and aligned with the defending occupyers of the fort / battlekeep, so no confusion with the "main" sides. With others though, the Border Lands are supposed to be Open PvP, so if your solo then I guess your solo, if your in a group/party of however many people your protected from all other party members in a friendly fire situation/scenario I guess. Say if there are a group of 10 people waiting in the foiliage during a fight if they want to help out at some point on one particular side I guess it would be as simple as sending a tell / invite to join that side. This is all considering the limitation of players and the overall ruleset which have still to be detiremined.
Thats how I see it so far lol
I'm hoping that's the way it's going to work too.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Yes, Avery is quite the quick responder. It's my theory that he watches the these forums like a hawk 24/7 just waiting for the word AoC to come up, to provide helpful tips.
hmm I wonder what game Avery is looking forward too. LOL.. I must say you sure do keep up with anything to do with this game. Very nice post!!
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
Compilation of Wexx's Unofficial AoC Surveys can be found here:
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=41561
Interesting read and shows what members of the official community are like in relation to their preferences and ideas for AoC.
Updated Front Page
Posted: - 12.02.2008
I know that all of you are anxious to learn more about what's up with Age of Conan, especially after our recent announcement.
I know that all of you are anxious to learn more about what's up with Age of Conan, especially after our recent announcement. I will use this opportunity to try to, in a rather detailed manner, go through the very essence of the game – what we have accomplished, what we have changed, where we stand, and also touch on the great future ahead.
As all of you know we are deep in Beta at the moment, and so far way more than ten thousand people have been invited. Naturally not all people are playing all the time (reminder from me: check your email;), but we have some really awesome testers, hacking away at our systems and design. As you all also know we have been in various stages of beta for a long time, but it's over the last months we have really been able to get the feedback we need.
Let me take side-step here to tell you a bit how we look at various aspects of the game. You probably don’t know this, there are more than 500 or so code-features that we have in the game. Each of these features are tracked with a status description defined by QA, beta testers, the core team etc. They also have a level of importance. We do this for all the content as well, every region/zone, monster, mesh and item. We do this to try to make sure nothing slips through the cracks – that everything gets enough testing, polish and rework. We, as most developers, call each round of creation, testing and polish “iterations”. The higher the iteration count, the better the result.
Most of the content and most of the features have been deployed to the beta, or are waiting for deployment in QA. Let me give you an example on some things we have a special focus on right now. Things like core hands-on combat (iteration nine now), items and quest rewards (iteration 3), feat system (was redesigned after last delay. It is now in a new iteration and feels truly awesome), PvP mini-games (iteration three, soon going live on Beta, with more areas on the way) and GUI (iteration 5, 3, 2 or one depending on the area) are all things we have a special eye on.
Some places in our development things are coming slowly to the beta version, in other places it is blindingly fast. As an example; when the new rendering engine was patched to beta recently, the engine we had on the beta was almost three months old. On other stuff we patch it out almost instantly, and what it all boils down to is quality and iteration. Is it good enough to test yet, are we happy about it? That is why we have features in the beta which can only be triggered by GM commands (like building a battle keep). The entire foundation and code is there though– it just needs cleanup before it is enabled. Through the rest of February and March (and beyond) we will implement what we have, make it available to test, and then polish, and polish. Once we move towards our initial March deadline we will then focus harder on shifting to a launch mind-set, but still continue the polish as we move towards May 20th. Seeing from my side of things, and seeing that I can play or peek at ALL parts of the game, I therefore actually feel very good these days. It’s busy, for sure, but what we have coming for you is something special.
So then; what about the cuts you might have heard about after the community event? First of all; we wanted to tell our community sites this first as they are so important to us. That some cuts had to come is a natural part of creating an MMO, and I will tell you why. As you all know it is my responsibility as a Game Director to guide the vision, tinkering at every little part of the game to make the WHOLE much better than each of the parts. That means that my job is not only about creating but also about changing stuff, or cutting them – or as in the case of classes pool them up. At the end of the day someone has to say «this was a much better idea on paper than in the game. Let us focus on what is there – for the good of the whole game.» I do this all the time, through the whole development cycle. I do this on hundreds of things you have never heard about. I do this with regret more often than not, but I always know it is the right thing to do. With more than 500 features, tons of content and endless combinations of features and content to balance - each and every one a building block in the great MMO world of Hyboria, it must be done.
For each and every single one it is my job to go in and say «go go go», or, «cut», or «this must change». I don't do alone of course, thousands of beta testers, the Funcom team and our close partners are also part of this. For let's face it. When we announced Conan in 2005 we had to go out with a feature list. We had to communicate what our game was about. When announcing a feature list we also made a promise to you! And our promises are very, very important to us as a company as well as to me as a person. When it comes down to the essence of this promise to you it is however clear that the most important is the one about giving you a good game as a whole when played, not as a list of features on a piece of paper or in a message on a board. I wish I had the fantastic ability to communicate an idea, a vision, an feeling – not as a list of features in mere words ,p Sadly, it is not possible. List of features are what the players expect and will get. I will go through the list of features changed or cut compared to what it sounded like three years ago. And, honestly, these cuts DO actually make our game better, I know you might not want to see this from my point of view, but it’s true.
Global Forced Player Formations – This is a fantastic idea on paper, and we have even demoed it live. At E3 we had fifty people in a formation. The player formations were implemented and tested, we even have tools to set up positions and add their effects. The problem was, it never excited people to lose control over their characters. Having your character move when someone else moves sort of undermines the idea of a game don’t you think? The coordination of a voluntary formation was just too much for most players, especially with the collision system we have. It simply wasn’t fun! It has now melted down to location based effects only for some classes. (Stand in line with a Conqueror when he is running his formation, and you will have a great deal of resistance vs knockbacks for instance…)
Two more classes merged – The Lich into the Necromancer and the Stormcaller and Scion of Set merged into the Tempest of Set. I use the word merge here instead of cut, as we have not really cut what those classes could do. We have rather taken the best of what they had, to make our other classes even more unique. At the end of the day we chose «unique, varied, fun, solid». Remember that unbalanced classes are the number one topic of all released MMOs, or where you know EXACTLY what a class must do in the end-game. When it comes to our classes it has been more important for us to look at the whole instead of each single piece.
Prestige Classes - It was a great idea those many years ago before we got into the depth of our character progression, but as we moved deeper and deeper into development and our internal alpha testing we found that the prestige classes were not giving the experience they were supposed to. In fact, the prestige classes were doing the opposite of what we wanted them to do when they got into the mix. It didn't give more variety or more solid character progression, it rather cornered the player. We wanted character progression to be about choice, and not about running down a small corridor to a given end. The end result was something people weren’t used to and upset them too much.
Going to hell as a result of screwing up your spell-weaving - Hmmm, two crucial magicians wiped from a raid test sort of left us asking if this idea was even good on paper ;p I rest my case.
That was our cuts, and you might not ever see these things either. It’s not a lot, and it won’t make the game any lesser. In fact, most of our ideas and announced features have proven to be sound, well performing features, and the ones who haven’t been was better off left out.
That is not to say that everything stays the same as it was originally intended, seldom anything do, it only means that we have found that the vision was working as intended, and gone with that. This means that Age of Conan keeps on having a feature list which is groundbreaking for the launch of any MMO. I mean, the siege PvP is still in (and you will have an awesome time with it as you come to the end-game), mounted combat is still in (and it works, he he, I know some didn't believe we could pull that one of ;p), our great hands-on combat system is still in, PvP progression is still in, our raid dungeons are still in, player-made cities are still in (and they will still be in the resource and building regions) tradeskills are still in, thousands of items and great rewards are still in, all of our dungeons are still in (and they look and play great), all of our cities are still in, Conan is still in the game, Tarantia noble district is still there, our destiny quests are still there, our thousands of general quests are still there, our amazing landscapes are still there (and working great with the updated engine;), our 7.1 audio technology is still in (and what an audio landscape!), the dynamic camps are still there, the AI is still there, the hundreds of emotes are still there (yes, you can sit of course – even on chairs – just wait and see ;p), the ability to solo to level 80 is still in (but it won't be trivial), the feat tree is still in (and getting better all the time!), great solo game play in the beginning is thriving, you can behead, dismember, gut and gawk at the sexiest females in the MMO universe…
...phew.
When we gave you our feature list it was not an empty marketing promise to merely grab your attention, but our serious effort of telling you what we were trying to accomplish. We told you about our vision for the game. The vision has not changed at all! The true Conan experience awaits.
So what about the open beta then, when can you get to play? We will continue to invite more and more people to our general beta and our tech events all the way up to the end of April. If that number goes up to 35000 I wouldn't be very surprised at all, perhaps even more. With these numbers we are able to test all we need to test – and to control the logistics of a simultaneous US and European launch in 4 languages! And then in May, well, we will soon tell you ;p!
So what about the times ahead then? In one of the first postings I did several years ago I talked about what I think we have a proud tradition of doing in Funcom – have a dialogue with our players. We ask, you tell - we listen, you ask, we tell - you listen. In the post launch road this is what we will have the highest focus on – dialogue. An MMO is a joint venture.
The first months will only be about instantly (or as fast as possible) deal with “issues”. After that, we shall have more foci: expansion packs, live content updates and working on an Xbox 360 version. Before launch I plan to commit on a roadmap for all content that we at that time want to add, change or investigate. I am not sure I will communicate this entire plan, but some of it will come as another statement, and will include loose dates with a solid order. I plan to make some of these features and areas actually come in the order as decided by a poll. We shall see what the future brings!
I have told the dev-team quite often – “I have never worked on a better team”. I can now say to you, “I have never worked on a game of which I have been more proud”. The other day the Combat and Control team and I visited a level 37ish “outdoor dungeon” called the “Sanctum of the Burning Souls”. It is a group instance. We were sweating through the dungeons barely managing to stay alive as the Guardian lost aggro because a Barbarian did too much dps or the Tempest of Set went out of mana and couldn’t keep his heals up - and I thought to myself: “I am playing a real, deep, fun and truly engaging MMO here, but with approaches and action like no other online game before!»
The great house of Hyboria has been erected, and we are now doing the final interior work. The red (blood stained;) carpet is ready to be rolled out . Soon! And I just know you will love most all of what we have ready for you. I know this now.
Yours truly
Gaute
wow splendid
Nice work compiling all this.
Good information^^ I'm booking this thread
..............