The Anvil Of Crom Age Of Conan Turns 4 Taps SWG For Crafting Inspiration
The final time I did an anniversary retrospective for Age of Conan, we had a recent expansion, some new dungeon content material, and several other class revamps fresh on our minds. The 12 months before that, we had the earth-shaking combat and itemization adjustments. This past 12 months, the key growth was, in fact, the switch to a freemium business model, adopted carefully by the game's first adventure pack.
Be part of me after the break for a quick rundown on the final 12 months as they occurred in Hyboria, in addition to an anniversary interview with game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison that sheds a bit of gentle on the crafting revamp.
The top of June saw AoC be part of the ranks of Western freemium converts with the Unchained update. The majority of the unique Hyborian Adventures marketing campaign was made freely accessible to all comers, together with 4 of the sport's 12 classes. The game's 2.6 patch additionally introduced us the Breach and Forgotten City dungeons in Khitai in addition to look armor performance (and there was much rejoicing).
A week later, Funcom threw a bone to its hardcore PvP crowd with the introduction of the Blood and Glory special ruleset servers. Deathwish and Rage have been initially quite widespread, and Funcom additionally hinted at some curious instancing tech within the works. We have not heard a lot about it since, however I count on that we'll be taught extra this summer time after the launch of The key World.
The end of August brought us AoC's first journey pack. The Savage Coast of Turan was too small to be known as a correct expansion but too large for a simple "patch" moniker, and Funcom has hinted that this shall be the first distribution model going forward.
We bought a brand new degree 50 to fifty five playfield with a ton of quests, a stage 50 to eighty scaling solo dungeon, a max-stage solo dungeon, a max-level group dungeon, and a brand new raid occasion, all of which have been based across the Jason Momoa Conan film that debuted in the summer of 2011.
January noticed the introduction of the long-awaited House of Crom dungeon. Sadly (or thankfully, depending on the way you look at it), this occurred after my personal AoC sabbatical, so I've yet to cover the dungeon here within the pages of The Anvil of Crom. That will likely be remedied briefly order, though, and within the meantime, you can learn all about it on the sport's official web site.
March introduced us the new Jade Citadel raids, additionally fodder for a future column installment or four. The Priest of Mitra class was given an extensive makeover in this update too, and that brings us up to the current day.
As per AoC anniversary tradition, I had an opportunity to ask a couple of questions of government producer Craig Morrison. Keep studying to see what he has to say concerning the upcoming crafting revamp plus an entire lot more.
Massively: Is there any overlap between the AoC and TSW dev teams? Any cross-pollination of concepts? For instance, TSW's crafting system appears pretty nifty. Any chance that AoC's upcoming revamp shares anything in common with it or is impressed by it in any approach?
Craig Morrison: The teams are run independently and have their own resources and management. Remember that we each run on the same technology platform, which is independently developed by another separate division, so we get many inherent upgrades simply via that course of. In that method, there are many shared initiatives and issues. That means we may use the identical Dreamworld feature in alternative ways, simply as we'll with the single server expertise that's at present in the works. It is a cool scenario for a sport of our age to be in because it means we can generally benefit from some fairly cool technical work that we simply would not be able to afford otherwise.
In terms of the crafting system, that is something very distinctive to TSW. They took their inspiration from Minecraft when it came to their form- and placement-primarily based crafting, and it's a cool system, actually good fun to play with. However, I'm actually trying ahead to the new system for Conan. We're trying again a bit extra, taking our inspiration from games like Star Wars Galaxies and the opposite earlier MMOs, with a deal with substances and finding the best combinations. That adds a layer of depth that you do not find in the opposite fashionable MMOs which have used extra simple checklist type crafting programs, the place you get the identical outcomes all of the time.
Personally I feel it is exciting to see proper crafting making a comeback in our games. Both approaches have advantage, and I think what the workforce is cooking up for Conan is more fitted to the barely more stat-based degree development we have now in Conan, as opposed to the flatter system in TSW. Nevertheless, each methods are putting a premium on true experimentation and asking gamers to suppose and discover the system somewhat than simply learn an ingredient listing. I really feel it is one thing that MMOs can benefit from exploring again.
In regard to a excessive-degree view of the crafting revamp, how much can we expect crafters to be necessary to the in-game economy? Will gamers be able to get finish-game gear and consumables from crafters, or will these items stay solely loot-drops?
The aim is for the crafted items to be competitive will all however the best of the endgame gear, and possibly even in some cases, provide a few of the most effective gadgets, although I do not think I would like to solid that as a particular in a single direction or one other and make some sort of sweeping blanket statement.
What I'll say is that we're aiming for the items to be useful for veterans and endgame and that the freedom it should characterize will permit those that give attention to it to make the perfect gadgets. We hope to create a symbiotic relationship there, the place a few of the higher gadgets will come from crafters, and crafters will want the assistance of the raiders to gather some of the rarer ingredients.
Are you able to give us any hints about the subsequent adventure pack? What a part of Hyboria will it cowl (geographically, even a common area if you can't get particular)? Can we expect it in 2012?
We aren't revealing the exact location of the pack simply but, but as we teased in the last improvement letter, we're trying south again, close to one of the unique game areas.The adventure pack is at the moment aimed for the tip of the yr, yes. The crew is at the moment laborious at work on it so that we can release it toward the top of Q4.
South, you say? Stygian content is fairly barren compared to the sport's other zones. There's Khemi and Khopshef for levels 20-35 or so, after which Kheshatta from 70-80. Is the adventure pack set there, or are there any plans to add some more Stygian content between, say, forty and 70?
I feel we addressed that level range in other playfields, like Ymir's Go and Tarantia Commons. I do not suppose we ever set as much as essentially have an equal variety of locations in every of the games territories, partly for visible and cultural range and partly to cover some completely different ideas and concepts from Howard's Hyboria.
Since we are wanting south, yes, the journey pack content material might properly stray close by geographically, but the cultural and mythos that can affect it is one other beast altogether. Count on to listen to more concerning the adventure pack a bit later in the summer time. While the production teams are separate, as we talked about above, since we're an unbiased studio, all of our central groups are shared, so the advertising and marketing and PR people are a contact busy right now with the launch of The secret World, so we'll hold the adventure pack reveal until after that.
There is a notion on the market that because of the perceived inadequacies of AoC's launch, the sport is not worth checking out even 4 years later. Why do you suppose that is, and would you agree that MMOs like AoC are utterly different animals from their launch builds?
MMOs always evolve. That is likely one of the few constants within the style. Personally I all the time attempt and check out video games a second or third time, and I feel many veterans are the same. We are additionally helped by the fact that due to the Dreamworld engine, the game nonetheless looks aggressive with current releases. After all the issues that the sport had at launch does have an impact on some veterans' opinions, and that is an anticipated part of working in that style.
I do not think you may hold it against anybody, at the top of the day there were very excessive expectations for that launch, and the unique team fell just short of a few of these expectations. It's pure that some players won't give you a second probability. Minecraft servers You will never, ever, win everybody again over. However, it's somewhat of a disgrace as a result of MMO titles do evolve. As long as you all the time give attention to bettering the sport and adding content material, then there is a relentless movement of people that come again to check out the game once more.
In reality, those gamers typically end up as a few of your most loyal followers after that as a result of someone who had an issue with the game and returns to see the problems that they had resolved appreciates how far you could have come. After all, that fluctuates for every participant; some actually just like the modifications while some really feel a game might have moved away from what they preferred about it, but general we generally hear pretty good things from those that had prolonged absences from the game. They arrive again, and they remember simply how a lot they appreciated the combat system, or they get to embrace the viscerally mature setting that Hyboria offers.
Any plans to adjust the free-to-play offerings within the close to future, or is Funcom fairly happy with the amount of access Unchained gamers currently have?
Overall we're fairly happy, however we might consider some tweaks and adjustments. As part of the birthday celebrations for example, we're giving free players the power to grab permanent access to the premium dungeons from the original recreation, so we're open to persevering with to evolve the free participant offering so that the game stays aggressive. I believe free gamers in Age of Conan Unchained have one of the crucial open techniques out there.
No mandatory quest or development content blocks until they attain max level is a reasonably sweet deal, one that provides more than many different F2P titles. It's an ever more competitive market, although, so we will definitely continue to alter things up as and after we see match with a purpose to appeal to the ever-growing and ever-extra-demanding military of free players out there.
However, one necessary level is that we actually need to be able to avoid having to go down the whole pay-to-win path. We now have been very careful to keep away from that for a motive, so we wish to maintain the worth to gamers of being premium members. That in flip means that you just can't give every thing away for free until you're keen to fully embrace a pay-to-win strategy, and that isn't someplace I'd be snug taking the game.
What about an AA respec for subscribers -- any plans to supply that sooner or later?
The alternate development system was designed to not want "respecs" as you may in any case simply earn more factors since there isn't any steep curve in the progression, and it is a flat worth. So at a basic degree, there aren't any plans to allow for players to re-use already spent factors.
If we added a respec we would have to consider your complete set-up, since players would then never need to get beyond X variety of feats they've determined are optimum for different situations, and they'd just change between them. That stated, in fact you don't need to stand in the best way of players feeling they will progress, so we might have a look at it from one other angle, be that some form of changes to the AA progression, or maybe in the future, some type of a number of-specification system as we are doing for feats.
Finally, nearly as good because the questing and the storyline in Tortage is, a few of us have actually run it two dozen instances now on numerous alts. Any chance veterans would possibly get a "skip Tortage" skill at some point?
Yes, I might like to get something like that in at some stage. Now we have talked about it a number of occasions, but it tends to be one of those things that loses out within the priority conversations. As we transfer in direction of a fifth 12 months, it is going to hopefully be one thing we are able to sneak in at some stage.
Sounds good -- we're looking forward to the following 12 months!
In addition to offering us with an interview scoop, Funcom has additionally thrown some prizes our way to give to Massively readers. We now have 10 codes that grant 4 months of premium time to any present account. If you do not have an existing account, you may always create a free one and apply the codes from there.
How do you get your hands on one of these codes? Merely watch our Fb and Twitter pages the place we'll give out all codes from now till Friday night. Better of luck!
Jef Reahard is an Age of Conan beta and launch day veteran as well as the creator of Massively's bi-weekly Anvil of Crom. Be at liberty to recommend a column topic, propose a guide, or perform a verbal fatality through [email protected].
