Age of Conan dev update talks open-world PvP, House of Crom

by Jef Reahard on Dec 13th 2011 11:00AM

Fantasy, Age of Conan, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Patches, PvP, News items, Free-to-play, Dungeons

Funcom game director Craig Morrison has released his monthly Age of Conan development update a couple of weeks early. Morrison usually closes each month with a summary of where the game has been and where it's going, and the December version is no different save for the mid-month release date.

While there's a lot of info, the most interesting bits concern the projected live date of the long-awaited House of Crom dungeon. Morrison says that the new content will most likely debut on January 11th or 12th, and that the dungeon will be playable on AoC's test shard over the Christmas holidays.

Also new this month is a detailed explanation of the game's upcoming open-world PvP content. When the new feature was first announced, the game's hardcore PvP community unleashed an epic tidal wave of tears due to suppositions about "PVE sheep trying to pass in PVP wolf's clothing," not to mention concerns about a possible rehash of the game's disastrous Shrines of Bori mechanic. Morrison spends several paragraphs of this month's update explaining what Funcom has learned since Bori, and how that knowledge is going to translate into a fun system that isn't exploitable via PvE mechanics. You can read the full update at the official AoC website.

Source: December dev update
More coverage: Official site

Tags: age-of-conan, age-of-conan-unchained, aoc, aoc-unchained, bori, craig-morrison, dungeons, funcom, game-mechanics, house-of-crom, monthly-development-update, open-world-pvp, pvp, pvp-world-boss, shrines-of-bori, silirrion, theres-no-crying-in-pvp

Reader Comments (16)

I don't know if it is possible to please the PvP crowd, I really don't. They turned their nose up at the Blood and Glory server. They have never seemed content since I been playing the game, but I came on late. Maybe back in the early days they were a happy bunch?

@Poordevil

Eh, it's hard to say. Many of them now pine for the days of 1.04 and earlier (when AoC wasn't as gear-dependent as it is now), but they also forget about the exploits and gem-stacking issues that they constantly complained about back then.

It probably is a losing battle for Funcom to try and please PvPers at this point (and given the amount of PvE updates compared to PvP ones over the last couple of years, I think the devs know this).

@Poordevil

I was perfectly happy with the PvP at launch. The gem stacking issue (one-shot pole-guardians, ftw), was a problem with player stat mechanics, and skill pre-loading, not the original PvP rule-set.

@Poordevil

There have never been a more wretched hive of whiners and moaners than the PvP crowd. This vocal 10% have unfortunately deluded the game developers into thinking the other 90% care.

@Jef Reahard

For me, at least, PvP is only fun if gear, or any other kind of character advancement, makes no difference. This is why the only PvP I currently play in MMOs is DCUO's Legend PvP; it uses pre-made characters that can't be improved by the player in any way.

@Poordevil

Never played the game but find it funny that the PVPers turned their nose up at the hard core PVP server. Shows most probably dont know what they want and just complain. No matter the game, WOW/RIFT/AOC/whatever the PVP crowd always always cries the loudist.

If the ones playing conan are like the ones playing other games, most seem to think the game should be based around 1v1 pvp. It never seemd to sink into thier little minds that a multiclass game with gear on top of it and a diverse range of player skill can never be 100% balanced.

@avaloner

If you'd played the game and had any idea what you were talking about, you'd know that the so called hardcore pvp server was nothing more than a pr stunt, it addressed none of the issues with pvp in AoC and it became a pve grinding server because you need to hardcore grind pve instances for essential alternative advancement feats to be strong in pvp. The pvp-ers didn't want the server and said it would fail the way it failed when it was announced.

@Jef Reahard

Woah there, the most popular servers used to be the pvp servers by a long way, don't you see the trend of favouring pve updates massively over pvp ones and the huge shrinking of most of AoC's population? Fixing exploits and gem stacking did not necesitate the huge overhaul in gear power with 1.5, AoC at 1.4 stage needed fixes not a total overhaul and it was the pve crowd who cried for more power for thier 'phat lewt'. Should we also mention the state of sieges during AoC's lifetime is totally unacceptable, you don't think that might drive off pvp players? Or maybe forcing you to pug mini games rather than pvp with friends?

AoC's unique selling point was it's combat system which shines in pvp and is meaningless in pve, AoC has become just another niche pve grind game when it could have been a massive pvp mmo. And all because of PVE whiners and a game director obsessed with PVE that has no clue about PVP.

If Funfom is going the factional route for World PvP, I really want to know how they plan to avoid imbalance.

Some players want a fair, fun fight. A larger number of players just want easy rewards, and thus will jump to the "winning" faction, if there is one, in a heartbeat.

I think Funcom would be better served by having flexible, but automatically balanced factions, in a similar way non-massive PvP multiplayer games work - say, have two opposing "sponsor" NPCs recruiting players, where each will recruit the exact same number of players (with extra players put in a queue) - and where players are given the option of either trying to work for a specific patron, or going with "whoever pays more" (the one currently without a queue). Recruitment would stay valid for a given time period - say, a day or week - and could be terminated early (balanced factions means players attempting to jump from the losing side to the winning one would most likely be unable to do so).

Pure PvP'ers are never happy in MMOs. They only represent about 10% of MMO players (if that) and the genre simply isn't designed for them. That's one of the main reasons they don't like the way any MMO delivers PvP and I don't see AoC's changes making any difference unless it hacks off the PvE players even more.

The other reason is, of course, that in every PvP fight there's a winner and there's a loser, and the loser will always whine that he lost because of the system rather than because of his relative lack of skill. By definition, therefore, half the PvP playerbase will always be unhappy.

PvP'ers should stick to the FPS genre, and MMO developers should stick to PvE.

AoC is a typical example of a game that trys to cater to both playstyles and fails on both counts. WAR and Rift are the same, both failing to satisfy the PvP minority while also failing to appeal to the PvE majority through a weak and shallow questing system which gets tired very quickly in these particular games.

@Seffrid

"AoC is a typical example of a game that trys to cater to both playstyles and fails on both counts. WAR and Rift are the same, both failing to satisfy the PvP minority while also failing to appeal to the PvE majority through a weak and shallow questing system which gets tired very quickly in these particular games."

I really don't think Age of Conan fails at PvE. Can't speak regarding Rift or WAR having never played either, But I had a blast playing AoC PvE. It had enough strong points or features as a PvE MMO to keep me playing and enjoying the game for months. I am not big on end game content, so after taking 2 toons to max level I decided to take a break. But I intend to come back for more Conan action after some more content is rolled out.

If you were into "hardcore" PvP you'd be playing a FPS. I'm fed up of a section of the playerbase that can never be appeased bending so much out of shape. Class balance becomes point and sharp around PvP. As long as it's not outlandishly out of whack it a far milder issue under PvE as long as everybody is having fun.

@Carnagh

Thats like saying if you want to play player vs player sports you'd only do arm wrestling because other sports have gear and not everyone has the same football boots / tennis racket etc. etc. Why should pvp be limited to one genre?

I wonder how much are try going to charge for it. I used to love this game (to the point that I bought some of their special packs and had a year sub) before they went F2P but I stopped playing after they released the instances that made reference to the Conan movie that came out and wanted to charge me for it like it was an expansion. I did not like giving my money away twice for the sub and the patch (not expansion) so I quit the game. I do not mind paying for expansions, I do not mind paying for services that I want but do not release a patch and attempt to charge me for it when I am already a paying customer, especially in this economy.

Other than that I had a blast in the game, granted I sucked, but I had a blast just riding my horse around.

@arodriguezc They are not charging for it. It's not an adventure pack, just old promised content that never got released.

Turan doesn't offer much content compared to RotGS, I agree, but that's also why it's very cheap. The art is fantastic and the new dreamworld engine shines in it. A much needed mid-leveling area was added to break the Cimmerian boredom, an awesome raid to shorten the wait for the rest of the T4 bosses and close the gear gap, and on top of that an excellent (and award-winning) soundtrack are definitely worth the 15$ they ask for it. The economy is not that bad so you can't afford that, they deserve it for their work. Sounds like you just gave up on the game altogether due to other reasons.

@Ephe
Yea if the players are going to begrudge the devs any kind of recompense for something like the Turan adventure pack, it is tough to see how we can expect a steady flow of new content. Also, it is not like they demand money for every improvement either. Those two outside dungeons in Khitai were free. Then there is the behind the scenes work done on the Dreamworld engine itself that takes a ton of work that end users are not charged additional for. In fact when things go a little rough players are recompensed for the inconvenience. The big crafting update on the way is going to be a major task involving months of work. I don't see players being charged for that either. Only pointing out that there is a lot of development work going on with Age of Conan end users are not charged extra for. When the whole project is taken as a whole, I think what Funcom does charge for is well within reason.

Age of Conan dev update talks open-world PvP, House of Crom

Reader Comments (16)

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 11:11AM Poordevil said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 11:28AM Jef Reahard said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 12:04PM Plastic said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 1:23PM Ardra Diva said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 1:26PM DarkWalker said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 1:48PM avaloner said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 3:46PM MustardCutter said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 3:55PM MustardCutter said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 12:33PM DarkWalker said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 12:41PM Seffrid said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 8:27PM Poordevil said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 3:33PM Carnagh said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 4:00PM MustardCutter said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 8:10PM arodriguezc said

Posted: Dec 13th 2011 9:13PM Ephe said

Posted: Dec 14th 2011 12:25AM Poordevil said

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