Notes

The Anvil Of Crom: Age Of Conan Turns Four, Taps SWG For Crafting Inspiration
The last time I did an anniversary retrospective for Age of Conan, we had a recent expansion, some new dungeon content, and several other class revamps contemporary on our minds. The yr earlier than that, we had the earth-shaking fight and itemization adjustments. This past year, the major development was, in fact, the swap to a freemium enterprise mannequin, adopted carefully by the game's first journey pack.

Join me after the break for a fast rundown on the last 12 months as they happened in Hyboria, as well as an anniversary interview with sport director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison that sheds a little bit of light on the crafting revamp.

The top of June saw AoC join the ranks of Western freemium converts with the Unchained update. The vast majority of the original Hyborian Adventures marketing campaign was made freely out there to all comers, along with 4 of the game's 12 courses. The sport's 2.6 patch also brought us the Breach and Forgotten City dungeons in Khitai as well as look armor performance (and there was a lot rejoicing).

Every week later, Funcom threw a bone to its hardcore PvP crowd with the introduction of the Blood and Glory particular ruleset servers. Deathwish and Rage were initially fairly widespread, and Funcom additionally hinted at some curious instancing tech in the works. We have not heard much about it since, however I count on that we'll be taught more this summer time after the launch of The secret World.

The tip of August introduced us AoC's first adventure pack. The Savage Coast of Turan was too small to be known as a proper enlargement but too massive for a easy "patch" moniker, and Funcom has hinted that this shall be the primary distribution mannequin going ahead.

We obtained a new stage 50 to fifty five playfield with a ton of quests, a stage 50 to 80 scaling solo dungeon, a max-level solo dungeon, a max-level group dungeon, and a brand new raid instance, all of which were primarily based around the Jason Momoa Conan movie that debuted in the summer time of 2011.

January saw the introduction of the lengthy-awaited Home of Crom dungeon. Sadly (or fortunately, depending on how you have a look at it), this occurred after my private AoC sabbatical, so I've yet to cowl the dungeon right here within the pages of The Anvil of Crom. That can be remedied in brief order, though, and within the meantime, you possibly can learn all about it on the game's official webpage.

March introduced us the brand new Jade Citadel raids, additionally fodder for a future column installment or 4. The Priest of Mitra class was given an extensive makeover in this replace too, and that brings us as much as the current day.

As per AoC anniversary tradition, I had a chance to ask a few questions of govt producer Craig Morrison. Keep studying to see what he has to say about the upcoming crafting revamp plus a whole lot more.

Massively: Is there any overlap between the AoC and TSW dev groups? Any cross-pollination of concepts? For example, TSW's crafting system appears pretty nifty. Any likelihood that AoC's upcoming revamp shares something in common with it or is inspired by it in any manner?

Craig Morrison: The teams are run independently and have their very own resources and management. Remember that we each run on the identical expertise platform, which is independently developed by another separate division, so we get many inherent upgrades simply through that process. In that method, there are lots of shared initiatives and concerns. Meaning we might use the identical Dreamworld characteristic in other ways, just as we will with the single server technology that's presently within the works. It is a cool situation for a recreation of our age to be in as a result of it means we will generally take advantage of some fairly cool technical work that we merely wouldn't be capable to afford otherwise.

By way of the crafting system, that's one thing very distinctive to TSW. They took their inspiration from Minecraft when it came to their form- and site-primarily based crafting, and it's a cool system, really good fun to play with. However, I am really trying forward to the new system for Conan. We are wanting again a bit extra, taking our inspiration from video games like Star Wars Galaxies and the other earlier MMOs, with a concentrate on elements and discovering the very best combos. That provides a layer of depth that you don't discover in the opposite modern MMOs which have used more simple listing kind crafting systems, the place you get the same outcomes all of the time.

Personally I believe it is exciting to see correct crafting making a comeback in our video games. Each approaches have merit, and I believe what the workforce is cooking up for Conan is more fitted to the slightly more stat-based level progression we've in Conan, as opposed to the flatter system in TSW. However, both systems are putting a premium on true experimentation and asking players to suppose and explore the system somewhat than simply read an ingredient listing. I feel it is one thing that MMOs can benefit from exploring again.

In regard to a high-stage view of the crafting revamp, how a lot can we anticipate crafters to be necessary to the in-sport financial system? Will gamers be capable to get end-sport gear and consumables from crafters, or will those objects stay solely loot-drops?

The intention is for the crafted goods to be competitive will all however the better of the endgame gear, and possibly even in some situations, provide a few of one of the best gadgets, although I don't think I want to solid that as a particular in one path or another and make some kind of sweeping blanket statement.

What I'll say is that we are aiming for the objects to be useful for veterans and endgame and that the freedom it would symbolize will allow those that deal with it to make the very best gadgets. We hope to create a symbiotic relationship there, the place some of the higher objects will come from crafters, and crafters will want the assistance of the raiders to gather a few of the rarer elements.

Are you able to give us any hints about the next adventure pack? What part of Hyboria will it cowl (geographically, even a general area if you can't get particular)? Can we anticipate it in 2012?

We aren't revealing the exact location of the pack simply yet, but as we teased within the last development letter, we're wanting south once more, close to one in every of the original sport areas.
The journey pack is at the moment aimed for the top of the yr, yes. The team is currently onerous at work on it so that we are able to release it toward the tip of Q4.

South, you say? Stygian content material is fairly barren in comparison with the sport's other zones. There's Khemi and Khopshef for levels 20-35 or so, and then Kheshatta from 70-80. Is the adventure pack set there, or are there any plans so as to add some extra Stygian content between, say, 40 and 70?

I feel we addressed that degree vary in other playfields, like Ymir's Cross and Tarantia Commons. I do not think we ever set up to essentially have an equal variety of places in every of the games territories, partly for visible and cultural diversity and partly to cover some totally different concepts and ideas from Howard's Hyboria.

Since we're trying south, sure, the journey pack content may properly stray nearby geographically, however the cultural and mythos that will affect it's one other beast altogether. Count on to listen to more concerning the adventure pack a bit later within the summer time. While the production teams are separate, as we talked about above, since we're an impartial studio, all of our central groups are shared, so the marketing and PR folks are a contact busy right now with the launch of The secret World, so we'll hold the journey pack reveal until after that.

There's a perception on the market that due to the perceived inadequacies of AoC's launch, the sport isn't price testing even four years later. Why do you think that's, and would you agree that MMOs like AoC are completely completely different animals from their launch builds?

MMOs at all times evolve. That is without doubt one of the few constants within the genre. Personally I always attempt and check out games a second or third time, and I think many veterans are the same. We're also helped by the fact that due to the Dreamworld engine, the sport still looks aggressive with recent releases. Of course the issues that the game had at launch does have an effect on some veterans' opinions, and that's an expected a part of working in that genre.

I do not assume you possibly can hold it towards anybody, at the tip of the day there were very high expectations for that launch, and the unique workforce fell just short of some of these expectations. It's natural that some gamers will not give you a second probability. You won't ever, ever, win everyone again over. On the other hand, it is somewhat of a shame because MMO titles do evolve. As long as you at all times focus on enhancing the game and including content material, then there is a relentless stream of people who come back to check out the sport again.

In fact, these players often find yourself as a few of your most loyal followers after that as a result of someone who had a difficulty with the game and returns to see the problems that they had resolved appreciates how far you will have come. Of course, that fluctuates for every participant; some actually just like the modifications while some really feel a recreation might need moved away from what they liked about it, but total we usually hear fairly good issues from those who had prolonged absences from the sport. They arrive back, and they remember simply how much they preferred the combat system, or they get to embrace the viscerally mature setting that Hyboria provides.

Any plans to adjust the free-to-play offerings within the close to future, or is Funcom fairly pleased with the quantity of access Unchained gamers currently have?

Overall we're fairly completely happy, but we might consider some tweaks and adjustments. As part of the birthday celebrations for instance, we're giving free players the ability to grab everlasting entry to the premium dungeons from the original game, so we're open to persevering with to evolve the free player providing in order that the game stays competitive. I believe free players in Age of Conan Unchained have one of the open techniques on the market.

No obligatory quest or progression content blocks until they reach max level is a pretty sweet deal, one that offers greater than many different F2P titles. It's an ever extra aggressive market, though, so we will certainly proceed to change issues up as and after we see fit in order to appeal to the ever-growing and ever-more-demanding military of free players out there.

Nevertheless, one necessary level is that we really need to have the ability to avoid having to go down the entire pay-to-win path. We've got been very cautious to keep away from that for a motive, so we wish to take care of the value to gamers of being premium members. That in flip means that you just cannot give all the pieces away without spending a dime until you are keen to totally embrace a pay-to-win strategy, and that is not somewhere I might be comfortable taking the sport.

What about an AA respec for subscribers -- any plans to supply that in some unspecified time in the future?

The alternate advancement system was designed to not want "respecs" as you'll be able to in any case merely earn more factors since there isn't any steep curve in the progression, and it is a flat value. So at SERVERS , there are no plans to permit for gamers to re-use already spent factors.

If we added a respec we would have to think about your complete set-up, since players would then by no means need to get beyond X number of feats they have decided are optimum for various situations, and they might just switch between them. That said, of course you don't want to face in the way of players feeling they will progress, so we might have a look at it from another angle, be that some form of changes to the AA development, or maybe in the future, some type of multiple-specification system as we're doing for feats.

Lastly, pretty much as good because the questing and the storyline in Tortage is, some of us have actually run it two dozen occasions now on varied alts. Any probability veterans might get a "skip Tortage" skill sooner or later?

Yes, I might love to get one thing like that in at some stage. We now have talked about it a number of occasions, nevertheless it tends to be a type of things that loses out within the precedence conversations. As we transfer in the direction of a fifth yr, it'll hopefully be something we will sneak in at some stage.

Sounds good -- we're trying forward to the next 12 months!

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Along with offering us with an interview scoop, Funcom has additionally thrown some prizes our means to provide to Massively readers. Now we have 10 codes that grant four months of premium time to any present account. If you do not have an current account, you'll be able to all the time create a free one and apply the codes from there.

How do you get your hands on one of those codes? Simply watch our Fb and Twitter pages where we'll give out all codes from now till Friday night. Best of luck!

Jef Reahard is an Age of Conan beta and launch day veteran as effectively because the creator of Massively's bi-weekly Anvil of Crom. Feel free to suggest a column matter, propose a information, or carry out a verbal fatality by way of [email protected].

My Website: https://securecontent.co/