Heh, yeah..poor dumb Neanderthal. I thought I was being pretty clear. I thought I was doing pretty good not to get side tracked by the personal jabs. But ok, if you want me to put it in baby talk and be extremely blunt it goes like this....
I do not like PvE raiding. I will not do PvE raids. I will not trade with PvE raiders. I will not buy from PvE raiders. I want to accomplish things with groups of 6 people or less. In past games that I've played it pissed me off that my progression was capped lower than that of PvE raiders. I want to know if this will be the case in AoC.
To what extent will this be the case?
To what extent in terms of PvE gear?
To what extent in terms of PvP gear?
If I never once participate in a PvE raid; if I never trade with or buy from a PvE raider or a middleman thereof; will I be able to progress in every way equally to those people who do participate in PvE raids? If not, then in what ways and to what degree will my progression be more limited than that of PvE raiders.
Originally posted by Athelan
The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple.
Now this is the sort of straightforward statement that I'm looking for. THIS is hard to argue with. I must admit I was suprised to see this line in your post. Well I'm paranoid. A long time ago I became convinced that AoC would be yet another raid grinding / raid or be gimped game. For PvE and for PvP equipment.
Ok, but that is a pretty direct statement.
"The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple."
Would you care to elaborate? You said that PvP equipment probably wouldn't be purchased with bloodmoney. So how exactly will PvP equipment be aquired through PvP play?
Hello Jason, Welcome to mmorpg.com. But have a couple of questions regarding pvp. Now I am a big crafter so how is ganking going to be handled? Say I'm crafting at one of the tables will I be attackable? This is one of the main reasons why I'm not a big pvp fan. I played on vox server eq2 so not it's like I never tried pvp. Hate dealing with griefers, those who just hound harvesters and crafters. Would love to try out AOC's crafting system as well, but are there going to be safe area for crafters or a pve server?
You'd only be able to be ganked if you were playing on an open PvP server. And if you were there is a punishment system called the bounty prison system in the works that identifies grief behavior and can eventually result in the criminal character being put in prison to complete a series of hard labor quests before being released.
How is this 'identifies grief behaviour' going to work? I go to jail if I repeatedly kill someone (that is how I understand griefing, spawncamping etc.)? How restrictive will this be, I mean it's supposed to be open pvp right? Is this something that crafters are able to abuse for their advantage?
Also, how is open pvp going to work in a level based game? Ten level 80's camping newbie zone?
How does casting work? Like combos? Or like any other game? I saw a video where it seems like hes clicking on the right panel to cast the spell but I couldn't realy tell...
For an archer, how do you change stance? (from sniping to normal for example)
I understand those 2 questions might get the same answer so if it's the case, feel free to answer just once
I have question... well maybe not a question but a concern. Why did the devs feel a need to copy the class system that was originally implemented in EQ2?
This is the one thing that I really disliked about EQ2. And in fact it seems I wasn't alone since they did away with it in the latest expansion. The whole pick archetype, level up, pick specialization, level up, pick further specialization, has been tried and it has generally failed. If you come to the realization that maybe the specialization you picked isn't what you thought it would be, then you just lost a whole lotta time and effort as generally, no way is given to be able to revert the choice. Whereas if you simply have specific classes from the get go, you usually have a pretty good idea if you like the class or not in a couple of levels.
And I admit that my concern may be unfounded as I don't have access to the game and perhaps I will change my mind once I get my hands on the game. But anyway... there you go.
Im not sure Hoser, we have tatoos, and scars, and piercings, and such things and can swap textures on items etc but I don't know if we are letting the players do that at release.
U say these may not be out at release tahts okay, but even within the guild im in theres been alot of talk about if u guys do let us have tatto's could it be possible to have a "guild" tatto, We are basically a 50/50 rp guild so we like to have our own lore to our guild and a tatto would defently help that. Basically, when or if u do add in tatto's will they only be aloud in char creation or will u be able to randomly get some guy to burn one onto you?
Also, there is absolutly no explaining anything to Neanderthal, you clearly posted a long detailed description of how you have alternate paths to get top level items or items that will help in PvP and his reply was "So you have to get your PvP gear from raids?" or whatever...
Its like bashing your head against the wall, and no Athelan, discussing things with me is NOT anything like that ... I can prospectively "hear you thinking it"
Nubbins: The devs have clearly and repeatedly talked about a deep alliance system for sieges... have no fear.
Actually he said that LODN in EQ was a way one game had approached the issue and that the AOC devs were aware of that. He never said anything of the kind was implemented and was quite careful to communicate that he had not confirmed that anything and been implemented.
I understand the necessity of not talking about what is and is not implemented at this point in time because frankly users will punish you no matter what if you give them any kind of info like that. But the fact still remains that the only thing confirmed was that they were aware of ways other games had dealt with the issue and that they thought it was "important".
Quote:
"Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything."
If this is important then why have they talked about all sorts of benefits of raiding but never mentioned this stuff? Why not diffuse the issue now? If they could honestly say they had all these bases covered wouldn't they use that as part of their PR, considering all the problems raiding has caused other games, one would think so. You would have to be blind to not see the sh*tstorms raiding threads often cause. Does it even matter? Because the fact is we know raiding will still get unique things:
"Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol""
But no matter what this direct quote from Athelan's first response to Neanderthal is fairly telling:
"First it would depend on how you define best, best for what? Best for PvE? probably. But I dont see a problem with that."
That is his opinion and its fine, its an opinion I certainly do not agree with though and won't be playing because of it. I do see a problem with it. We don't agree and that is that, so I will move on.
I have been tired of the argument that Athelan has made for quite some time. And I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say that I simply do not believe that raiders getting some uniquely powerful item, even if its equal in power level to other group-level items, but still the best in its particular stat is OK.
Another quote:
"Someone having to do something that not everyone can do and getting something unique is not a bad thing".
Does that quote mean raiding? It would seem to given the context of the question and its answer and the segway into LDON.
The thing is I don't disagree with this statement, but that isn't my problem with raiding. I can and have done it, I just hate it. So I refuse to be punished for hating it, especially when its such a minor part of the game. Sorry.
Seriously it should be clear that they intend to reward raiding with some sort of special rewards. I mean they have given numerous statements of intent about how some very nice things are only available through the high class raids. There really is no debate on that. Will these be super uber overpowered? We don't know. Will they unbalance PvP, the devs have come as close to a guarantee as they can to say they won't. Will non-raider PvEers get the same opportunities? No, they won't because raid rewards can and should be unique and worthwhile as far as a number of devs seem to have indicated.
I don't actually have a problem with some dude who has a better win/loss ration in PvP getting better gear than I do or getting some unique accolade. I don't really care if someone who plays more often than I do has more gold or more LODN style tokens. But I won't play a game that will reward a person who likes raiding with more/better items or options than a person who hates raiding.
The only thing that Athelan has said is that they understand a big complaint is the fact that some people simply have no way to the unique reward:
"the usual complaint is no way to ever get there. Look at Lost Dungeons of Norrath in EQ and how it let people token farm their way to raid level epics. It wasn't easy but there was a path to get there."
He never said this exists. He has said raiders should get some unique stuff though:
"We are not going to intentionally lock away all hopes for aquiring "good" gear in encounters only few players will be able to achieve. Conan has always been designed with the ability to solo while encouraging the developement of the player communities. But this does not mean we are going to give everything away to everyone either. Something needs to be special to make the extra effort worth it."
Is this reasonable? Yeah probably. Is it sufficient for me? No. I demand virtual parity between raiders and non-raiders. I do not demand virtual parity between hard and easy stuff. I do not accept that raiding falls into the challenging category anymore than some arbitrary group encounter does either. I do not buy the extra effort or extra challenge argument for raid rewards. Nor do I accept the conflation of the two ideas.
AoC wants special stuff for hard encounters, fine. But if you want to group raiding into that, I don't accept that. And further any special rewards from either easy or hard raids should have an analog in easy and hard group play. As far as I am concerned I should be able to get to the same place without ever stepping foot in a raid. Because I may have a goal or character build that requires that I get some item that is only available in a raid and therefore require me to play a game I hate, ie. raiding. I don't play games I hate. Its about play choice. Once you make unique things only available in one kind of play versus another you have suddenly branched the possiblities of of the game into separate paths.
Athelan has said this is something they do not think they can avoid and do not really wish to avoid. If they were taking about pure difficulty or time investment I would be fine with that. But when they apply that idea to raiding, which they clearly are, I am not fine with that. It may be that the degree of disparity between one kind play that is fun (group play) and the other kind that is incredibly crappy, awful and boring (raiding) is not that large, as various Devs have tried to intimate without actually confirming or showing numbers, that is fine. Personally that is not good enough for me though even if it turns out to be true. I don't really believe that is a good design principle, especially in something as complex as a large RPG.
hello jason, welcome to the forums, it's nice to have a reliable source representative to so diligently answer to all (or some) of the questions concerning Age of Conan.
1. I just wanted to ask about respeccing especially in case of healing classes - how much less effective will they be while levelling if someone chooses to focus on healing, will they be group useless if not specced to heal? and will there be a penalty for respeccing and some kind of points pool to distribute?
thanx in advance for any feedback on that one
This should not be a problem really as we were very careful to make sure there were no optional feat lines for improving healing ability. We absolutely did not want priests to have to be heal spec and knew if it was possible then it would become mandated. omg, that is awesome Agreed, nice to see they are making healers more fun to play. Forced healing specs are so lame.
You'd only be able to be ganked if you were playing on an open PvP server. And if you were there is a punishment system called the bounty prison system in the works that identifies grief behavior and can eventually result in the criminal character being put in prison to complete a series of hard labor quests before being released.
How is this 'identifies grief behaviour' going to work? I go to jail if I repeatedly kill someone (that is how I understand griefing, spawncamping etc.)? How restrictive will this be, I mean it's supposed to be open pvp right? Is this something that crafters are able to abuse for their advantage?
Also, how is open pvp going to work in a level based game? Ten level 80's camping newbie zone?
A.) I'm betting that he won't be able to answer this one quite simply because they are liable to tweak and/or change the system. One of the biggest problems with him being in this kind of position is what he can and cannot say, simply because of design details or changes making his statements made beforehand appear to be false if not outright lies.
B.) If I were designing it, I would probably define kill griefing in this particular regard as X number of kills from player A OR Y number of assisted kills from player A against player B occuring outside of any guild territory belonging to A, said kills would have to occur within a specific time period, and also said kills must not occur during a guild city siege involving either player for them to count. There would also be a number of modifying rules as well, for example a level 80 griefing a level 20 would be called to account for it far faster than players of equal level, similar rules existing for extreme differences in numbers.
Note: assisted kills here would be defined as any player death where player A caused a significant amount of damage. This is to help identify entire groups of griefers.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
If this is important then why have they talked about all sorts of benefits of raiding but never mentioned this stuff? Why not diffuse the issue now? If they could honestly say they had all these bases covered wouldn't they use that as part of their PR, considering all the problems raiding has caused other games, one would think so. You would have to be blind to not see the sh*tstorms raiding threads often cause. Does it even matter? Because the fact is we know raiding will still get unique things:"Someone having to do something that not everyone can do and getting something unique is not a bad thing".
Isn't diffusing the situation EXACTLY what Athelan has been doing by posting here?
Athelan doesn't do PR, but I agree, this has always been a big positive about AoC to me, but its not my fault you guys here didn't believe me when i told you about it... what? a year ago?
So what if raiders get unique gear? They pay sub fees too... (even though I hate them)
if Uber Raid Sword X is different to my Uber Chain Quest Sword Y, GOOD! I want to be as unique as they do! As long as Sword X does not totally outstrip Sword Y... and especially if Sword X doesn't get me pwned in PvP...
Neanderthal's quote of Athelan should be the ultimate quasher of these arguments: If the best PvP equipent comes from PvP then what people get from raids doesn't really matter as it cannot directly effect YOUR enjoyment of the game!!!
Also: I told you jerks this a year ago or more as well... these were the same concerns I had and I GRILLED Athelan about it, and Jayde too, we cannot expect Ath to be able to answer ALL these questions as he is only one man in a huge dev team, but between him and others all my concerns of WoW/EQ-esque Item/raidcentric PvP overbalancing have been laid to rest, and NONE of you was more concerned about it than i was...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Yeah, Sturmrabe, if you had had that one line quote to shove in my face a year ago it would have probably prevented a lot of arguing. Like I said, it's hard to argue with such a blunt statement.
But at this point I just can't change gears at the drop of a hat. It's the best I've heard so far. But...all these years...all the reams and volumes and page after page of text I've read about the game...and that one line quote is the first unequivacal statement of it's type I have ever seen. The first that wasn't couched as a hypothetical or a rhetorical or "This other game did it like this....."
One little line out of years of talk and hype.
But it's a good one, I'll grant you that. But like I said even if that one little line does alter or partially alter my opinion I can't change gears so quickly. It'll take a little time. Too much of what they've said in the past has built up my anti-AoC momentum so far that I can't bring it to a screeching halt the first time they toss a crumb in front of me.
Yeah, Sturmrabe, if you had had that one line quote to shove in my face a year ago it would have probably prevented a lot of arguing. Like I said, it's hard to argue with such a blunt statement. But at this point I just can't change gears at the drop of a hat. It's the best I've heard so far. But...all these years...all the reams and volumes and page after page of text I've read about the game...and that one line quote is the first unequivacal statement of it's type I have ever seen. The first that wasn't couched as a hypothetical or a rhetorical or "This other game did it like this....." One little line out of years of talk and hype. But it's a good one, I'll grant you that. But like I said even if that one little line does alter or partially alter my opinion I can't change gears so quickly. It'll take a little time. Too much of what they've said in the past has built up my anti-AoC momentum so far that I can't bring it to a screeching halt the first time they toss a crumb in front of me.
Heh, how's this? You pick another divisive topic concerning AoC and attack that instead? We'll be here
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
Ok let me see if I have this right as far as gear and the like is concerned.
Very early on on the official forums there was a post made that stated something to the effect that player skill was going to be paramount. The example was that a player 10 levels below another player but with far greater skill could take on and defeat the higher leveled character. This seemingly has changed as it is starting to sound like you are falling into the rut of other games where gear is the single most important thing. Even more troubling, at least for myself is that the items wont be coming from skilled crafters but from drops; either through extended painful boring quests or through even more mind numbing boring raids.
The reason I feel this way is simple: For a decade now developers and designers have failed miserably in offering quests and content beyond kill and fed ex quests. There may be a little twist here and there, maybe some better camouflage but it still boils down to talk to person, person is hungry, person tasks you with going to kill 50 pigs for 10 pig feet. Or person is a fat lazy bastage so they want you to go find the sword they were supposed to get for someone else and deliver it for them. Raids are a cop out. Developers and designers, more and more recently it seems, feel that their creative wells have run dry so instead of adding meaningful things for people to do in game have decided that we the players should sit there and repeat the same content dozens upon dozens of times. It doesn't serve to make the player more skilled but is instead a time sink where players have to fight moronic drop rates in order to get the flaming sword of uberness.
You guys sort of blew up this thread while I was busy and sleeping so you'll have to give me time. I wish this forum had multi-quoting like the official ones do it would be easier
I am going to try to see if I can give a much shorter answer to the very long posts about raiding. First I want to say that one of the highest level areas in the game is Kheshatta, and in the design meetings I was attending for it at least initially (again I am not directly working on that now) we all agreed on the fact it was important that there be things to do solo, things to do with 2-3 people, things to do with one group etc. Remember in Conan that a single group can vary in size from 6-10 people depending on the presence of Commander prestige classes.
There will never be true parity between player groups unless you basically clone content. The only way to ensure true parity is usually to make things pretty vanilla.
The problem is this, people who enjoy group challenges and raids are important too, the whole game has been designed around giving access to the casual gamer but even the mention of supporting raiding gameplay sends people into a tizzy because of what they have experienced before. To me however this is no different than players who like to PvP and don't like to PvP. Is it unfair to the PvE players if there isnt a set parity of items between PvE and PvP? No but I don't think it is expected, and I don't think direct parity is as important as percieved value. If which items are "better" comes down more to personal preference then I can't really argue I am being jipped.
To use a rather lame analogy, not implying anything here this is just the first thing in my head I dont think non raiders are wussies or anything at all, im very busy myself these days and while I like raids and the challenges I dont have the desire or time to be a "raider". Raiders are like people on a normal diet, the non raiders are a bit like vegetarians or some other diet concious group. Technically since they eat anything there is no way to give the vegetarians their portion in a way that makes them unique no matter how much you cater to them because the Raiders can still eat meat and also have the vegetables.
So much for the shorter post. Well all I can say is that the presence on the forums has always had a rabid seething vocal hatred for anything related to the word raiding. And one of the biggest things I noticed between EQ and WoW was how much even those people I raided with now wanted content that could be consumed while also having a real life. Regardless of how much you tend to dislike certain represenatives of the egotistical "Raiders" player group, or any other playergroup they are still an important part of MMO's, and while raid gameplay is being supported the vision for Conan was not to make a game for raiders. The visions for Conan were scenes from Braveheart and playing games like Dynasty Warriors, being badass, and reading the stories and comics. It was not a vision of 50 people fighting dragons.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Heh, yeah..poor dumb Neanderthal. I thought I was being pretty clear. I thought I was doing pretty good not to get side tracked by the personal jabs. But ok, if you want me to put it in baby talk and be extremely blunt it goes like this.... I do not like PvE raiding. I will not do PvE raids. I will not trade with PvE raiders. I will not buy from PvE raiders. I want to accomplish things with groups of 6 people or less. In past games that I've played it pissed me off that my progression was capped lower than that of PvE raiders. I want to know if this will be the case in AoC. To what extent will this be the case? To what extent in terms of PvE gear? To what extent in terms of PvP gear? If I never once participate in a PvE raid; if I never trade with or buy from a PvE raider or a middleman thereof; will I be able to progress in every way equally to those people who do participate in PvE raids? If not, then in what ways and to what degree will my progression be more limited than that of PvE raiders.
Originally posted by Athelan
The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple.
Now this is the sort of straightforward statement that I'm looking for. THIS is hard to argue with. I must admit I was suprised to see this line in your post. Well I'm paranoid. A long time ago I became convinced that AoC would be yet another raid grinding / raid or be gimped game. For PvE and for PvP equipment.
Ok, but that is a pretty direct statement.
"The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple."
Would you care to elaborate? You said that PvP equipment probably wouldn't be purchased with bloodmoney. So how exactly will PvP equipment be aquired through PvP play?
You are very odd. You don't want to ever interact with another playergroup but you want "progression" what is progression to you? Every MMO has a point at which people run out of new things to do. If you run out of new things to do and the only things "left" in the game were some sort of encounter requiring more than 6 people, and you then feel gipped on progression there really is no way anyone can make you happy.
And no I'm not going to elaborate because I said it would be something we would be working with the players on during Beta. You are not going to find all the answers to your questions 4 months prior to launch.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Hello Jason, Welcome to mmorpg.com. But have a couple of questions regarding pvp. Now I am a big crafter so how is ganking going to be handled? Say I'm crafting at one of the tables will I be attackable? This is one of the main reasons why I'm not a big pvp fan. I played on vox server eq2 so not it's like I never tried pvp. Hate dealing with griefers, those who just hound harvesters and crafters. Would love to try out AOC's crafting system as well, but are there going to be safe area for crafters or a pve server?
You'd only be able to be ganked if you were playing on an open PvP server. And if you were there is a punishment system called the bounty prison system in the works that identifies grief behavior and can eventually result in the criminal character being put in prison to complete a series of hard labor quests before being released.
How is this 'identifies grief behaviour' going to work? I go to jail if I repeatedly kill someone (that is how I understand griefing, spawncamping etc.)? How restrictive will this be, I mean it's supposed to be open pvp right? Is this something that crafters are able to abuse for their advantage?
Also, how is open pvp going to work in a level based game? Ten level 80's camping newbie zone? Committing something that is flagged as a crime increases your bounty, first by country then globally. This initiates a random event from a quest that sends NPC bounty hunters after you. You can either bribe them at a premium greater than your bounty, in which case its paid off. Go to prison to serve time which means the Bounty is reset, or fight them and run away in which you stay wanted.
Level 80's killing level 20's would be an example of something that would be a crime. However in some situations like the level 20 is trash talking bad things about your significant other, friend, or relative you don't want him artificially protected by level limits and would be willing to committ the crime anyway.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Not much word on magic but I'll ask anyways How does casting work? Like combos? Or like any other game? I saw a video where it seems like hes clicking on the right panel to cast the spell but I couldn't realy tell... For an archer, how do you change stance? (from sniping to normal for example)
I understand those 2 questions might get the same answer so if it's the case, feel free to answer just once
Stances are clickable icons usually.
Magic does not use combo's you have normal magic and spellweaving. The spellweaving has been discussed before and a little bit in the recent video interview that was posted.
1. There is no date that I am aware of besides 2008
2. I don't know
3. There are a lot of things that we are unsure of about this at this point, it might not be fair for example in PvP to have people using controllers vs people with keyboards and mice.
4. Again I don't know but I would expect voice chat through xbox live in some way and possible usb keyboard support as well?
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
I have question... well maybe not a question but a concern. Why did the devs feel a need to copy the class system that was originally implemented in EQ2?
This is the one thing that I really disliked about EQ2. And in fact it seems I wasn't alone since they did away with it in the latest expansion. The whole pick archetype, level up, pick specialization, level up, pick further specialization, has been tried and it has generally failed. If you come to the realization that maybe the specialization you picked isn't what you thought it would be, then you just lost a whole lotta time and effort as generally, no way is given to be able to revert the choice. Whereas if you simply have specific classes from the get go, you usually have a pretty good idea if you like the class or not in a couple of levels.
And I admit that my concern may be unfounded as I don't have access to the game and perhaps I will change my mind once I get my hands on the game. But anyway... there you go.
Unlike EQ2 Tho, this choice is a part of the destiny quest of your characters storyline of rediscovery. We used to have archetype, general class, specialized class, but now its just archetype, class.
We have discussed letting you choose our class right in character creation and when the quest gets to where you choose reminding you of the choice you already made or letting you change.
The classes themselves are quite different and since the class merges I don't think youll have a problem with being confused as to which way you want to go. Although so many classes are cool I have a hard time deciding... hmm Guardian with polearm, Necromancer, or Bear Shaman
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Ok let me see if I have this right as far as gear and the like is concerned.
Very early on on the official forums there was a post made that stated something to the effect that player skill was going to be paramount. The example was that a player 10 levels below another player but with far greater skill could take on and defeat the higher leveled character. This seemingly has changed as it is starting to sound like you are falling into the rut of other games where gear is the single most important thing. Even more troubling, at least for myself is that the items wont be coming from skilled crafters but from drops; either through extended painful boring quests or through even more mind numbing boring raids.
The reason I feel this way is simple: For a decade now developers and designers have failed miserably in offering quests and content beyond kill and fed ex quests. There may be a little twist here and there, maybe some better camouflage but it still boils down to talk to person, person is hungry, person tasks you with going to kill 50 pigs for 10 pig feet. Or person is a fat lazy bastage so they want you to go find the sword they were supposed to get for someone else and deliver it for them. Raids are a cop out. Developers and designers, more and more recently it seems, feel that their creative wells have run dry so instead of adding meaningful things for people to do in game have decided that we the players should sit there and repeat the same content dozens upon dozens of times. It doesn't serve to make the player more skilled but is instead a time sink where players have to fight moronic drop rates in order to get the flaming sword of uberness.
If I am wrong please correct me.
Like I said. Part of the reasons why I can't make promises when it comes to quest etc content is I work along with Jayde and a few others with the Balance/Gameplay oriented strike team. The content teams are structured in strike teams based on 20 level ranges and consist of artists, world builders, gameplay designers, scripters, quest designers etc. It is impossible for me to know exactly what has been done in every part of the game.
I know there are some cool quests that I have seen, I know that they want to do some cool stuff.
I don't think raids have anything to do with creative wells running dry. You want content to be re-usable simply from a cost effective standpoint. Quests as they are non repeatable are extremely time inefficient. Spend weeks working on a quest that takes a player 4-5 hours to do max and they can only do it once. Until content generation of complex quests and such becomes cheaper through better tools and the like its going to be very hard to expect you wont ever run out of new things to do.
Player skill is very important in Conan, we have taken our basic hands on action combat and added onion like layers to it so a true master of the game will be able to overcome great challenges.
I don't think anyone has ever argued that the repeatable end game content in addition to raids is there to improve player skill. If it improves skills its only those of listening to directions and group organization. PvP improves player skill far more in my opinion. Repeatable content is about giving people stuff to do so they dont get bored. Then again its been very rare that I have seen quests in any MMO that made me a better player.
Let me make one thing very clear, and I am pretty sure this can be backed up by the searchable dev posts like www.bymitra.com
The only reason why items, and raiding have been discussed at all by us has been in threads defaming and worrying about it and us trying to defend the fact we think items can have meaning, and raids can exist without removing player skill and destroying the game for other players. And it is our job as designers to be able to make that happen. But no matter how many times we say the same things it just opens another 10-20-30 page thread about the same thing, or 5 of them. Neither Jayde or myself the two most vocally active devs ever started threads to announce anything about items or raids.
As far as I can recall, we also have ever used "we will have all the uber raids" or "come get epics" as even marketing points we represent the game on.
And to be frank im so tired of this issue I dont really want to rehash it, I came over here so I could help clarify questions for the community here knowing that some information has been hard to come by. I did not come over here to have to re-discuss all the huge debates that have been on the official forums. If you want to know the context of those please go over there and look it up as this has been discussed ad nauseam
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
In all the videos we see people riding, walking, and battling in an open area or pathway. Are we even allowed to walk off the path and explore what lies beyond the lush green?
Comments
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Heh, yeah..poor dumb Neanderthal. I thought I was being pretty clear. I thought I was doing pretty good not to get side tracked by the personal jabs. But ok, if you want me to put it in baby talk and be extremely blunt it goes like this....
I do not like PvE raiding. I will not do PvE raids. I will not trade with PvE raiders. I will not buy from PvE raiders. I want to accomplish things with groups of 6 people or less. In past games that I've played it pissed me off that my progression was capped lower than that of PvE raiders. I want to know if this will be the case in AoC.
To what extent will this be the case?
To what extent in terms of PvE gear?
To what extent in terms of PvP gear?
If I never once participate in a PvE raid; if I never trade with or buy from a PvE raider or a middleman thereof; will I be able to progress in every way equally to those people who do participate in PvE raids? If not, then in what ways and to what degree will my progression be more limited than that of PvE raiders.
Now this is the sort of straightforward statement that I'm looking for. THIS is hard to argue with. I must admit I was suprised to see this line in your post. Well I'm paranoid. A long time ago I became convinced that AoC would be yet another raid grinding / raid or be gimped game. For PvE and for PvP equipment.
Ok, but that is a pretty direct statement.
"The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple."
Would you care to elaborate? You said that PvP equipment probably wouldn't be purchased with bloodmoney. So how exactly will PvP equipment be aquired through PvP play?
How is this 'identifies grief behaviour' going to work? I go to jail if I repeatedly kill someone (that is how I understand griefing, spawncamping etc.)? How restrictive will this be, I mean it's supposed to be open pvp right? Is this something that crafters are able to abuse for their advantage?
Also, how is open pvp going to work in a level based game? Ten level 80's camping newbie zone?
Not much word on magic but I'll ask anyways
How does casting work? Like combos? Or like any other game? I saw a video where it seems like hes clicking on the right panel to cast the spell but I couldn't realy tell...
For an archer, how do you change stance? (from sniping to normal for example)
I understand those 2 questions might get the same answer so if it's the case, feel free to answer just once
I saw you were playing forza 2 on xbox atm and so am I
But now my questions:
1, Is a date set for the release of AoC on the xbox?
2, When I buy AoC on the PC, can I change it so I play it on my 360, w/o more costs?
3, Can people play PC vs Xbox ?
4, How will the communication work on the 360?
I know it's all about the 360, but this is what I haven't seen any much information, would be glad if you could answer some of them
This is the one thing that I really disliked about EQ2. And in fact it seems I wasn't alone since they did away with it in the latest expansion. The whole pick archetype, level up, pick specialization, level up, pick further specialization, has been tried and it has generally failed. If you come to the realization that maybe the specialization you picked isn't what you thought it would be, then you just lost a whole lotta time and effort as generally, no way is given to be able to revert the choice. Whereas if you simply have specific classes from the get go, you usually have a pretty good idea if you like the class or not in a couple of levels.
And I admit that my concern may be unfounded as I don't have access to the game and perhaps I will change my mind once I get my hands on the game. But anyway... there you go.
I understand the necessity of not talking about what is and is not implemented at this point in time because frankly users will punish you no matter what if you give them any kind of info like that. But the fact still remains that the only thing confirmed was that they were aware of ways other games had dealt with the issue and that they thought it was "important".
Quote:
"Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything."
If this is important then why have they talked about all sorts of benefits of raiding but never mentioned this stuff? Why not diffuse the issue now? If they could honestly say they had all these bases covered wouldn't they use that as part of their PR, considering all the problems raiding has caused other games, one would think so. You would have to be blind to not see the sh*tstorms raiding threads often cause. Does it even matter? Because the fact is we know raiding will still get unique things:
"Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol""
But no matter what this direct quote from Athelan's first response to Neanderthal is fairly telling:
"First it would depend on how you define best, best for what? Best for PvE? probably. But I dont see a problem with that."
That is his opinion and its fine, its an opinion I certainly do not agree with though and won't be playing because of it. I do see a problem with it. We don't agree and that is that, so I will move on.
I have been tired of the argument that Athelan has made for quite some time. And I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say that I simply do not believe that raiders getting some uniquely powerful item, even if its equal in power level to other group-level items, but still the best in its particular stat is OK.
Another quote:
"Someone having to do something that not everyone can do and getting something unique is not a bad thing".
Does that quote mean raiding? It would seem to given the context of the question and its answer and the segway into LDON.
The thing is I don't disagree with this statement, but that isn't my problem with raiding. I can and have done it, I just hate it. So I refuse to be punished for hating it, especially when its such a minor part of the game. Sorry.
Seriously it should be clear that they intend to reward raiding with some sort of special rewards. I mean they have given numerous statements of intent about how some very nice things are only available through the high class raids. There really is no debate on that. Will these be super uber overpowered? We don't know. Will they unbalance PvP, the devs have come as close to a guarantee as they can to say they won't. Will non-raider PvEers get the same opportunities? No, they won't because raid rewards can and should be unique and worthwhile as far as a number of devs seem to have indicated.
I don't actually have a problem with some dude who has a better win/loss ration in PvP getting better gear than I do or getting some unique accolade. I don't really care if someone who plays more often than I do has more gold or more LODN style tokens. But I won't play a game that will reward a person who likes raiding with more/better items or options than a person who hates raiding.
The only thing that Athelan has said is that they understand a big complaint is the fact that some people simply have no way to the unique reward:
"the usual complaint is no way to ever get there. Look at Lost Dungeons of Norrath in EQ and how it let people token farm their way to raid level epics. It wasn't easy but there was a path to get there."
He never said this exists. He has said raiders should get some unique stuff though:
"We are not going to intentionally lock away all hopes for aquiring "good" gear in encounters only few players will be able to achieve. Conan has always been designed with the ability to solo while encouraging the developement of the player communities. But this does not mean we are going to give everything away to everyone either. Something needs to be special to make the extra effort worth it."
Is this reasonable? Yeah probably. Is it sufficient for me? No. I demand virtual parity between raiders and non-raiders. I do not demand virtual parity between hard and easy stuff. I do not accept that raiding falls into the challenging category anymore than some arbitrary group encounter does either. I do not buy the extra effort or extra challenge argument for raid rewards. Nor do I accept the conflation of the two ideas.
AoC wants special stuff for hard encounters, fine. But if you want to group raiding into that, I don't accept that. And further any special rewards from either easy or hard raids should have an analog in easy and hard group play. As far as I am concerned I should be able to get to the same place without ever stepping foot in a raid. Because I may have a goal or character build that requires that I get some item that is only available in a raid and therefore require me to play a game I hate, ie. raiding. I don't play games I hate. Its about play choice. Once you make unique things only available in one kind of play versus another you have suddenly branched the possiblities of of the game into separate paths.
Athelan has said this is something they do not think they can avoid and do not really wish to avoid. If they were taking about pure difficulty or time investment I would be fine with that. But when they apply that idea to raiding, which they clearly are, I am not fine with that. It may be that the degree of disparity between one kind play that is fun (group play) and the other kind that is incredibly crappy, awful and boring (raiding) is not that large, as various Devs have tried to intimate without actually confirming or showing numbers, that is fine. Personally that is not good enough for me though even if it turns out to be true. I don't really believe that is a good design principle, especially in something as complex as a large RPG.
Also, how is open pvp going to work in a level based game? Ten level 80's camping newbie zone?
A.) I'm betting that he won't be able to answer this one quite simply because they are liable to tweak and/or change the system. One of the biggest problems with him being in this kind of position is what he can and cannot say, simply because of design details or changes making his statements made beforehand appear to be false if not outright lies.
B.) If I were designing it, I would probably define kill griefing in this particular regard as X number of kills from player A OR Y number of assisted kills from player A against player B occuring outside of any guild territory belonging to A, said kills would have to occur within a specific time period, and also said kills must not occur during a guild city siege involving either player for them to count. There would also be a number of modifying rules as well, for example a level 80 griefing a level 20 would be called to account for it far faster than players of equal level, similar rules existing for extreme differences in numbers.
Note: assisted kills here would be defined as any player death where player A caused a significant amount of damage. This is to help identify entire groups of griefers.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Isn't diffusing the situation EXACTLY what Athelan has been doing by posting here?
Athelan doesn't do PR, but I agree, this has always been a big positive about AoC to me, but its not my fault you guys here didn't believe me when i told you about it... what? a year ago?
So what if raiders get unique gear? They pay sub fees too... (even though I hate them)
if Uber Raid Sword X is different to my Uber Chain Quest Sword Y, GOOD! I want to be as unique as they do! As long as Sword X does not totally outstrip Sword Y... and especially if Sword X doesn't get me pwned in PvP...
Neanderthal's quote of Athelan should be the ultimate quasher of these arguments: If the best PvP equipent comes from PvP then what people get from raids doesn't really matter as it cannot directly effect YOUR enjoyment of the game!!!
Also: I told you jerks this a year ago or more as well... these were the same concerns I had and I GRILLED Athelan about it, and Jayde too, we cannot expect Ath to be able to answer ALL these questions as he is only one man in a huge dev team, but between him and others all my concerns of WoW/EQ-esque Item/raidcentric PvP overbalancing have been laid to rest, and NONE of you was more concerned about it than i was...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Yeah, Sturmrabe, if you had had that one line quote to shove in my face a year ago it would have probably prevented a lot of arguing. Like I said, it's hard to argue with such a blunt statement.
But at this point I just can't change gears at the drop of a hat. It's the best I've heard so far. But...all these years...all the reams and volumes and page after page of text I've read about the game...and that one line quote is the first unequivacal statement of it's type I have ever seen. The first that wasn't couched as a hypothetical or a rhetorical or "This other game did it like this....."
One little line out of years of talk and hype.
But it's a good one, I'll grant you that. But like I said even if that one little line does alter or partially alter my opinion I can't change gears so quickly. It'll take a little time. Too much of what they've said in the past has built up my anti-AoC momentum so far that I can't bring it to a screeching halt the first time they toss a crumb in front of me.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Very early on on the official forums there was a post made that stated something to the effect that player skill was going to be paramount. The example was that a player 10 levels below another player but with far greater skill could take on and defeat the higher leveled character. This seemingly has changed as it is starting to sound like you are falling into the rut of other games where gear is the single most important thing. Even more troubling, at least for myself is that the items wont be coming from skilled crafters but from drops; either through extended painful boring quests or through even more mind numbing boring raids.
The reason I feel this way is simple: For a decade now developers and designers have failed miserably in offering quests and content beyond kill and fed ex quests. There may be a little twist here and there, maybe some better camouflage but it still boils down to talk to person, person is hungry, person tasks you with going to kill 50 pigs for 10 pig feet. Or person is a fat lazy bastage so they want you to go find the sword they were supposed to get for someone else and deliver it for them. Raids are a cop out. Developers and designers, more and more recently it seems, feel that their creative wells have run dry so instead of adding meaningful things for people to do in game have decided that we the players should sit there and repeat the same content dozens upon dozens of times. It doesn't serve to make the player more skilled but is instead a time sink where players have to fight moronic drop rates in order to get the flaming sword of uberness.
If I am wrong please correct me.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Nice to see ex. guildmates getting forward with their dreams.
and Shameless ad of course
www.shadowclan.com
I am going to try to see if I can give a much shorter answer to the very long posts about raiding. First I want to say that one of the highest level areas in the game is Kheshatta, and in the design meetings I was attending for it at least initially (again I am not directly working on that now) we all agreed on the fact it was important that there be things to do solo, things to do with 2-3 people, things to do with one group etc. Remember in Conan that a single group can vary in size from 6-10 people depending on the presence of Commander prestige classes.
There will never be true parity between player groups unless you basically clone content. The only way to ensure true parity is usually to make things pretty vanilla.
The problem is this, people who enjoy group challenges and raids are important too, the whole game has been designed around giving access to the casual gamer but even the mention of supporting raiding gameplay sends people into a tizzy because of what they have experienced before. To me however this is no different than players who like to PvP and don't like to PvP. Is it unfair to the PvE players if there isnt a set parity of items between PvE and PvP? No but I don't think it is expected, and I don't think direct parity is as important as percieved value. If which items are "better" comes down more to personal preference then I can't really argue I am being jipped.
To use a rather lame analogy, not implying anything here this is just the first thing in my head I dont think non raiders are wussies or anything at all, im very busy myself these days and while I like raids and the challenges I dont have the desire or time to be a "raider". Raiders are like people on a normal diet, the non raiders are a bit like vegetarians or some other diet concious group. Technically since they eat anything there is no way to give the vegetarians their portion in a way that makes them unique no matter how much you cater to them because the Raiders can still eat meat and also have the vegetables.
So much for the shorter post. Well all I can say is that the presence on the forums has always had a rabid seething vocal hatred for anything related to the word raiding. And one of the biggest things I noticed between EQ and WoW was how much even those people I raided with now wanted content that could be consumed while also having a real life. Regardless of how much you tend to dislike certain represenatives of the egotistical "Raiders" player group, or any other playergroup they are still an important part of MMO's, and while raid gameplay is being supported the vision for Conan was not to make a game for raiders. The visions for Conan were scenes from Braveheart and playing games like Dynasty Warriors, being badass, and reading the stories and comics. It was not a vision of 50 people fighting dragons.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Now this is the sort of straightforward statement that I'm looking for. THIS is hard to argue with. I must admit I was suprised to see this line in your post. Well I'm paranoid. A long time ago I became convinced that AoC would be yet another raid grinding / raid or be gimped game. For PvE and for PvP equipment.
Ok, but that is a pretty direct statement.
"The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple."
Would you care to elaborate? You said that PvP equipment probably wouldn't be purchased with bloodmoney. So how exactly will PvP equipment be aquired through PvP play?
You are very odd. You don't want to ever interact with another playergroup but you want "progression" what is progression to you? Every MMO has a point at which people run out of new things to do. If you run out of new things to do and the only things "left" in the game were some sort of encounter requiring more than 6 people, and you then feel gipped on progression there really is no way anyone can make you happy.And no I'm not going to elaborate because I said it would be something we would be working with the players on during Beta. You are not going to find all the answers to your questions 4 months prior to launch.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
How is this 'identifies grief behaviour' going to work? I go to jail if I repeatedly kill someone (that is how I understand griefing, spawncamping etc.)? How restrictive will this be, I mean it's supposed to be open pvp right? Is this something that crafters are able to abuse for their advantage?
Also, how is open pvp going to work in a level based game? Ten level 80's camping newbie zone? Committing something that is flagged as a crime increases your bounty, first by country then globally. This initiates a random event from a quest that sends NPC bounty hunters after you. You can either bribe them at a premium greater than your bounty, in which case its paid off. Go to prison to serve time which means the Bounty is reset, or fight them and run away in which you stay wanted.
Level 80's killing level 20's would be an example of something that would be a crime. However in some situations like the level 20 is trash talking bad things about your significant other, friend, or relative you don't want him artificially protected by level limits and would be willing to committ the crime anyway.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Magic does not use combo's you have normal magic and spellweaving. The spellweaving has been discussed before and a little bit in the recent video interview that was posted.
Part I: http://www.insidegamer.nl/pc/ageofco...es/videos/2719
Part II: http://www.insidegamer.nl/pc/ageofco...es/videos/2742
Targeting with magic like Melee is done using a cone so you can quickly target and fire off spells in a more action game oriented way.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/jaynen00/Forza/photo#5076046154125389938
http://picasaweb.google.com/jaynen00/Forza/photo#5075643483761520690
1. There is no date that I am aware of besides 2008
2. I don't know
3. There are a lot of things that we are unsure of about this at this point, it might not be fair for example in PvP to have people using controllers vs people with keyboards and mice.
4. Again I don't know but I would expect voice chat through xbox live in some way and possible usb keyboard support as well?
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
We have discussed letting you choose our class right in character creation and when the quest gets to where you choose reminding you of the choice you already made or letting you change.
The classes themselves are quite different and since the class merges I don't think youll have a problem with being confused as to which way you want to go. Although so many classes are cool I have a hard time deciding... hmm Guardian with polearm, Necromancer, or Bear Shaman
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
I know there are some cool quests that I have seen, I know that they want to do some cool stuff.
I don't think raids have anything to do with creative wells running dry. You want content to be re-usable simply from a cost effective standpoint. Quests as they are non repeatable are extremely time inefficient. Spend weeks working on a quest that takes a player 4-5 hours to do max and they can only do it once. Until content generation of complex quests and such becomes cheaper through better tools and the like its going to be very hard to expect you wont ever run out of new things to do.
Player skill is very important in Conan, we have taken our basic hands on action combat and added onion like layers to it so a true master of the game will be able to overcome great challenges.
I don't think anyone has ever argued that the repeatable end game content in addition to raids is there to improve player skill. If it improves skills its only those of listening to directions and group organization. PvP improves player skill far more in my opinion. Repeatable content is about giving people stuff to do so they dont get bored. Then again its been very rare that I have seen quests in any MMO that made me a better player.
Let me make one thing very clear, and I am pretty sure this can be backed up by the searchable dev posts like www.bymitra.com
The only reason why items, and raiding have been discussed at all by us has been in threads defaming and worrying about it and us trying to defend the fact we think items can have meaning, and raids can exist without removing player skill and destroying the game for other players. And it is our job as designers to be able to make that happen. But no matter how many times we say the same things it just opens another 10-20-30 page thread about the same thing, or 5 of them. Neither Jayde or myself the two most vocally active devs ever started threads to announce anything about items or raids.
As far as I can recall, we also have ever used "we will have all the uber raids" or "come get epics" as even marketing points we represent the game on.
And to be frank im so tired of this issue I dont really want to rehash it, I came over here so I could help clarify questions for the community here knowing that some information has been hard to come by. I did not come over here to have to re-discuss all the huge debates that have been on the official forums. If you want to know the context of those please go over there and look it up as this has been discussed ad nauseam
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Get back to work, you are a spammer.
That is all.