June 16, 2007

Age of Conan update

Some interesting news about Age of Conan were revealed in this AoC developer interview:

First of all, every guild with more than 30 members may build its own guild village (guild bank, crafting places, guild hall,...). Solo players won't be able to construct a house. I like this decision since it enhances community building which is vital for MMOs. Plus, it provides the players with community individualization - the possibility 'to return home', to have a place where you can easily find your friends - or foes. ;-)

Second, they'll introduce (Roleplay-)FFA-PvP-Servers ("RPvP"). "because in Hyboria (Conan's world) there is no Role Playing without being able to kill someone." Exactly. No more carebear-RP à la 'uh but we're on the same side / fraction - you CAN'T kill me, this would be SO MEAN! And an Orc is not SUPPOSED TO kill an orc!' If someone argues that way in Conan, you can just stuck a sword into him to prove he is wrong. Yay.

They are not yet sure about the PvP rewards. There'll be PvP-only rewards called 'blood coins', but what I like even more is the consideration of implementing item looting, be it everything, one item, or back-pack items.


Shameless playerkilling will punished by putting the PKer in jail where he has to do a repetitive quest to get out. This is a somewhat nice idea since you can't just log onto another character and wait for your main to finish his imprisonment... still, it's repetitive and one-dimensional - no opportunities to form bonds, to found thieves / assassins guilds or to bully cell inmates? It's good to require actions from the player to get out of jail, but there should still be different actions available. But well, this somewhat continues the rather boring design philosophy of the AoC-quests... And there are other things where AoC really excels compared to other MMOs (combat system, magic system, crafting career, PvP sieges, guild enhancement,...).

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