tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79570220669671257432024-02-07T18:06:49.874-08:00Assassin's HideoutSlithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.comBlogger476125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-85567705741843234162016-05-04T04:41:00.001-07:002016-05-04T04:41:12.682-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-75680549842124655582016-04-22T23:14:00.000-07:002016-04-22T23:14:36.275-07:00Why arena fails for spectators<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I stand by my glowing review just a post away: yes, arena was a good idea and a clever use of the small resources the team has. Granted 1v1 on a flat arena ends up exactly how I predicted (everyone just blows all cool downs and hope for the best) but that was always the bane of duels and at very least people are doing more pvp which is always good. The only thing that I wasn't able to test on TL were queue and spectating and both of those things turned out to be horrible. </div>
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Let's start with spectating in general: you can't select the fighters in the arena so you can't see their HP bars, names, spells being casted and even some of the particles.</div>
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When spectating duels you are just looking at two characters duking it out with a very vague idea who is winning and who is using what. You might not even be aware who is fighting because you can't see the names. Correct me if I am wrong but huge part of watching the duels is paying attention to HP bars since there is nothing more exciting than seeing the fight ending up with someone under 10% of HP. You can forget about that with arena.</div>
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When it comes to PVE it's even worst: all you see is a player face tanking some nameless pet. You can't see the particles on the floor that pet is casting, you can't see HP bars. Basically is as boring as watching the paint dry.</div>
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Here is my main grudge: since the arena is shared between PVPers and PVEers (can't imagine why) when I come in for some duels I have to endure (aka spectate) 3-4 fights of people face tanking their pet cat or whatever. Then I have my duel and then we are back to cat fights. At this point I am like fuck it and doing mini or logging off. So I am estimating I will be rank 4 with Gladiators factions in 2020. So if you are wondering: is arena content the lord and savior of Hyboria? Nope.</div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-88785747221533557292016-03-20T05:11:00.000-07:002016-03-20T05:11:50.193-07:00Pit Master's Arena<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The arena is now on TL.<br />
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Here is the post from TL forums:<br />
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<b>Funcom Official Feedback Thread: Pit Master's Arena</b><br />
<i>This is the official feedback thread for the Pit Master's Arena! This new area allows players to challenge their pets, as well as other players, in head to head combat.</i><br />
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<i>The entrance to the Pit Master's Arena can be found in the Fields of the Dead. For convenience, we've added a door to the Testlive Lobby that will take players right to this entrance.</i><br />
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<i>Once inside, players will find a vendor named Ciaran the Kennel Master, who offers a couple of things to assist with testing:</i><br />
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<i>* Mark of the Pit Master: This can be purchased and consumed to increase your faction rank with the Pit Master's Arena</i><br />
<i>* One Metric Ton of Pets: Purchasing and consuming this will temporarily increase your inventory, and give you a large number of pets. Please be aware that the inventory increase is temporary, and this will not assist in meeting the requirements to learn all of the pets. We strongly recommend that you learn all of the pets you are able to, and discard the rest before changing zones.</i><br />
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<i>For the purposes of allowing everyone to test without needing to wait for others to finish, we have temporarily set this playfield up to spawn a new instance for each player that enters. If you wish to test the PvP battles, please use the Instance Selector near the minimap to join another players instance.</i><br />
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<i>We look forward to hearing your feedback, and please let us know about any issues you encounter.</i><br />
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<i>Happy Testing!</i><br />
<i>Last edited by Erelon; 03-18-2016 at 08:47 PM.</i><br />
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So how is the arena? Exquisite. Like I <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/08/deconstructing-hyboria-interview.html">mentioned here</a> AOC cannot afford to make bad content. In the case of arena Funcom took previously rather bland feature (non combat pets) and turned it into fun and engaging content. I can see myself collecting more pets because of the Pit.<br />
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So the Pit is in Cimmeria and you have to enter the instance to use all the feature. It doesn't work like PvP queue where you just sign up and wait.</div>
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You talk to NPC to get quest or to queue up.</div>
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The main idea behind arena is not only to fight but also to spectate. With how fun are different are the fights with each pet I bet everyone will want to see how player going against a very rare pet. Also I would laugh my ass off watching some scrub getting manhandled by Pleasurable Company pet or.... the kitten (yes you can fight it too!). Watching PVP is entertaining in an obvious way. </div>
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There is no story behind the Pit on TL but I do hope we will get a nice chain of quests leading up to the the arena.</div>
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Of course we get more achievements. I was surprised to see no pet reward since in this context it would been perfect.</div>
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In order to buy rewards you need to gain rep with the factions. I love factions!</div>
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<b>PVE Arena</b></div>
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Getting right to the point: when you are teleported into the arena you will have 30 seconds to summon a pet that you intend to fight. At first you will be able only to summon white and green pets but after hitting higher ranks your options will expand.</div>
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Here is the breakdown (thanks to tapwater TL forum user):</div>
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Faction Rank 0 - Fight in Sparring pits only:</div>
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Common and Uncommon pets can be summoned.</div>
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Faction Rank 1 - Fight in Sparring pits only:</div>
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Common, Uncommon and Rare pets can be summoned.</div>
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Faction Rank 2 - Fight in both Sparring pits and the Main Arena - Sparring pits provide no faction gain: Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic pets can be summoned.</div>
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Faction Rank 3 - Fight in both Sparring pits and the Main Arena - Sparring pits provide no faction gain:Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary pets can be summoned.</div>
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Of course just bashing pets into oblivion would make for a horrible content so each pet is in fact a mini-boss. This means that pets will use special skills: there will be AOE that you have to avoid, CC to break or mechanics to figure out. Legendary and epic pets are obviously hardest, but even fighting with a green pet can have interesting and challenging. This NOTHING like the fights you are having with mobs in solo PVE.<br />
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Assassin throwing bombs at me. Better move out.</div>
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This pet will keep summoing guards until you kill him.</div>
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To sum it up: its done right, I can see myself indulging in this content on a daily basis. </div>
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<b>PVP Arena</b><br />
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I didn't have anyone to test it but it seems straight forward: you queue up and go for the kill. Now OBVIOUSLY a group arena would be a better choice. With the differences in classes and gear I imagine solo arena will turn into this experience:<br />
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And I can safely say we want something closer to this:<br />
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Now for my blasphemous prophecy: you can't just queue up and keep fighting with pets and players. Since there is a single arena you will have to wait for others to finish their fights before you can have another go. I can honestly see queues getting very long on Crom and people actually going to Fury because less population = less queue time. Go Fury!<br />
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I think Funcom has a good thing going with Arena but group option cannot come fast enough!Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-49529159086916984032016-02-26T10:40:00.000-08:002016-02-28T14:44:46.559-08:00Interview with Andy "Odonoptera" Benditt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Andy used to be "that guy you petition when /stuck doesn't work" and now he pretty much runs the show at Funcom (or at least community managment). Going from humble GM to an evil genius took some balls, and A LOT of solved petitions. I have sit with Odonoptera on the GM Island (yes it's real!) to talk about his glorious work .</div>
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<b>What is it like to be full time GM? Lets say you get to the office, grab your coffee and what is next? What is a "typical" day in a life of GM?</b></div>
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The actual process of being a GM is actually rather simple; you grab your coffee, you sit down, log in to your workstation, and simply press a literal "get next ticket" button. The next ticket in line is then assigned to you, and thus starts the shift! This could either be one of our in-game petitions for Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, The Secret World, or LEGO Minifigures Online, or it would be an e-mail ticket that has to do with billing or account issues. All of our in-game petitions can range from raid misloot issues to general questions, to harassment reports, and bug reports. All of our GMs handle everything across every game. </div>
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<b>What was your single most surreal experience as GM? Perhaps some player weirded you out or the game did something totally unexpected? </b></div>
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I'll confess that the zaniest moments in my time as a GM (that I'm able to talk about) were not from Age of Conan, but rather from Anarchy Online and The Secret World. Since you run an AoC site, I'm not sure what I can really say that could be relevant for this questionnaire. If it doesn't matter, there was a time in The Secret World where I nearly screwed up a new raid boss encounter by accidentally placing a minimum health cap on the boss. That was pretty nuts; my GM in TSW is mortal and can take damage (unlike in AoC and AO), so I intended to protect myself while observing a report about the boss and simply had the boss targeted instead of myself. My head nearly exploded while this was happening, although I did eventually manage to run a command that killed the boss and gave everybody in the raid credit for the run. So, not the end of the world--I did report myself to my manager immediately, and we sorted things out after that. </div>
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<b>GM powers. Everyone loves them. What exacly can you do as GM?</b></div>
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A simpler question to answer would have been "what CAN'T you do as a GM?" :) </div>
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GMs have access to special commands that can affect a number of stats, attributes, and settings. We can spawn any creature or boss, generate any item or token, teleport to any zone, or even change the time of day. With great power comes great responsibility, though--some of the commands we have access to can cause problems, so we never perform anything on players that could be considered unsafe or against the intended design of the game. I've broken my skills and abilities on my own GM character on more than one occasion (to the point where I can't even sprint) and while it's not difficult to fix, that could cause a lot of unhappiness if that were to affect a paying customer! </div>
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<b>With being GM you can pretty much do anything in Hyboria. Have that ruined the game for you in some way? I mean it must be demotivating to work towards anything in AOC when you can just summon that legendary sword with few key strokes. </b></div>
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It's true that being a GM 'demystifies' the game's content--As I said above, I am able to transport myself to any raid zone without needing any requirements for anything, or grant myself the cream of the crop as far as gear goes. On the other hand, spawning all that crazy gear on myself and then smacking target dummies makes me want to put in the work to get that stuff on a real character, if for nothing else but to show off a bit!</div>
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<b>When it comes to GMing how deep is your knowledge about the game? Do you have a very technical knowledge or do you have a lot of AOC playtime under your belt?</b></div>
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I won't speak for anybody else, but my own personal knowledge about the game primarily came from GMing over the years. I haven't played a ton of AoC recreationally, although I do have my own private incognito account that I hop on from time to time to see what's up, which is especially helpful to do in order to scope out the tone of chat without attracting attention. Now that I'm working with the community aspect of AoC rather than strictly service, I've been playing a lot more on my own.</div>
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<b>GM Island. The stuff that myths are made of. Is it real? Do GMs really hang out there?</b></div>
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There is indeed a playfield literally named "GM Island", yes. GMs 'hang out' there in the sense that it's the default location we return to when we're done assisting a player or need to remove ourselves from a zone.</div>
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<b>Your transition from GM to CM was rather unexpected. How exacly that happened and why?</b></div>
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Out of curiosity, 'unexpected' in what way? I've been interested in doing Community work for quite some time and had brought it up on more than one occasion. An opening showed itself, I applied, interviewed, and was fortunate and grateful to have been offered the position. Really, it's like any other transition you'd expect in a workplace: you work hard at your task, get to know people, show interest in something, and see what happens!</div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-22669437443520361512016-02-13T01:23:00.001-08:002016-02-13T01:23:14.640-08:001 year in review - 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yet another Hyborian year has passed and it is time for my savage review. When you look <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-taste-of-things-to-come.html" style="color: #949494; text-decoration: none;">at the list of things that were promised</a> in 2013/2014 it will be pretty obvious that most of the stuff did not get delivered. On another hand ..... Oh snap! Did I just <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/12/1-year-in-review-2014.html">copy/paste intro to last year's edition</a>? </div>
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<i>"Ya you did, also you have been slacking on posts as of late".</i></div>
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Well shut up, voice in my head, I am back to my blogging routine and OBVIOUSLY I will be back on meds soon enough.</div>
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Let me start over: </div>
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Yet another year has passed without the promised crafting revamp. Really, guys? I mean REALLY?</div>
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<i>"Now you are just grumpily ranting"</i></div>
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DAMN IT! Ok, lets just dive in:</div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18.48px;">COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT</span></div>
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Apart from some unmentionable community managers being angry with me <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/12/1-year-in-review-2014.html">for the 2014 review</a> pretty much NOTHING changed. If anything the monthly letters (in 2015 written by Sezmra) got progressively shorter and less substantial. In the end Tomium made a thread that pretty much said "Ok guys, tell us how to do our jobs as CMs" and asked for a feedback. Apparently it was pretty unsuccess attempt because the thread got deleted and both CMs quited Funcom. AOC is now under new CM management and he already has proven himself capable of turning things around. But that, my loyal readers, is for 2016 review.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.2px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18.48px;">EVENTS</span></div>
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The first event was the anniversary/adventure pack <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/05/shadow-of-vanaheim-review.html">called Shadows of Vanaheim</a> which was a disaster by all means. Just read the review. On the up side Matt 'Cirith Gorgor” Bennett <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/07/interview-with-matt-cirith-gorgor.html">in the interview I did with him</a> pretty much said "we fucked up, this won't happen again" which was very honest and very professional of him.</div>
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The team totally redeemed itself with state of the art Halloween event The Shambling Plague. That event was so good that I will actually post a late review soon enough. </div>
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<b>ACHIEVEMENTS, TREASURES, RARE BOSSES, PANORAMAS, TITLES</b></div>
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This update was nothing short of a miracle. Pretty much gave Hyboria a second life and brought the game a little closer to modern MMO standards. I now spend my time in the game going from zone to zone doing all the quests for the achievements and snatching up those treasures along with panoramas. I am doing this mainly for the story and I have found some real GEMS when it comes to quests that I have missed leveling up back 2008. Being now well versed in the black arts (and by that I mean having good knowledge of REH's Conan) I can really appreciate the creativity that went into the creation on some of the quests. My only wish is that achievements update went on top of another, more substantial update because achieves are great side dish, but fail a little as a main course.</div>
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<b>RAIDS</b></div>
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Biggest surprise of 2015 was The Palace of Cetris going live. No one, I mean NO ONE expected the team to actually finish the T6 raid and go live with it. Of course T6 being top tier raiding is pretty much open to few Crom guilds but that is supposed to change with new <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/08/deconstructing-hyboria-interview.html">Raid Finder system</a>. </div>
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So as you can see not much has happened during 2015 but what went live was of great quality (except Shadows of Vanaheim which is just shamefull). If you are into PVE then 2015 has a lot to offer. </div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-44724512283303112982015-11-26T10:34:00.003-08:002015-11-26T10:34:34.119-08:00Interview with Alex Tornberg - painting Hyboria with a brush..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Please tell us a bit about yourself and the work you did for Funcom.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m a concept artist and art director from Sweden. I started out working in the games industry as a Concept Artist in 2005 and in 2006 I joined Funcom working on Age of Conan. I spent 5 years working there. When I started out I designed mostly characters, armors and weapons but after a while I started doing environments and architecture as well. I worked as the Assistant Art Director on the Rise of the Godslayer where I had a big part in setting the style and art direction of playfields like Pai Kang and Gateway to Khitai as well as overseeing the art production of other playfields and content. I also spent a couple of days creating all the tattoo textures for Rise of the godslayer and I did a lot of the tattoos in Hyborian Adventures as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After I left Funcom I worked as an Art Director for an Electronic Arts studio for a while. Nowadays I work as a freelancer mostly for movies and TV, but I’ve done some work on games as well like for example on Path of Exile. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Please do tell us how the concept artist participates in the development. For most of the gamers concept art are just pretty pictures that we drool over druing the long wait for the game's release.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>What was your role exacly and how your typical day working for Funcom was looking like?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A concept artist is the person who visualizes the art directors vision through sketches and illustrations. Every asset and every building in a fantasy game needs to be designed, every location needs sketches that sets the mood of the area. So on a game like AoC there a lot of work for a concept artist. We had somewhere between 4-6 concept artist working the game during the time I was there, but nowadays big fantasy games like that would probably have around 10-15 concept artists working on them. A lot of the work isn’t the type of illustrations you drool over though, there’s a lot of rough sketches or painting over screenshots from the game to show the environment artists how it is supposed to look and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A normal work day would probably be something like this. I come in around 9 and have a coffee with the guys. After that I would look through my task list and see what concepts where a priority to finish first and then start drawing and painting. As I was the Assistant Art Director and Lead of the Concept Art team I would get interrupted routinely during the day for regular meetings and reviews or just questions or requests from other departments, I would also have to prioritize the work for the rest of the concept art team for every milestone. Then I’d head home sometime after six in the evening, depending on the workload at the moment</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>How are you collaborating with other developers and writers? Is your art something that others create around (hence the words „concept art”) or is it more of a team effort where for example writer tells you about the main story line and you are trying to get the tone and the mood of that story into the concept art?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On RotGS we worked very closely with Joel Bylos who was the Lead Designer then. The Concept Art team was working on the expansion before anybody else than Joel was really working on it. So there was a lot of brainstorming and sketching without any real story connected to them, some made it in others didn’t. We had a really great Concept Art team on that expansion. Stian Dahlslett as the Art Director, we had Grant Regan and Torstein Norstrand who had been working on AoC for years already, some great new guys in Ville Kinnunen and Per Haagensen and I was the Lead Concept Artist, and then Didrik came back and helped out with the final touches of the game. Both Grant and Ville are Howard fanatics. It was really a joy to work with these guys and probably the best team I’ve worked with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Joel was really great with using the Concept Art team to help out on RotGS, we usually worked very close with the World Builders and Level Designers. Sitting next to them at times when the playfields or levels were built giving advice directly to them or doing quick paintovers showing how we envisioned the look and feel, probably the best team work I’ve seen during my years in the industry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>What does your creative process look like? Are you flipping through Conan comics? Are you taking the inspiration from real world architecture? </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of the inspirations comes from the real world, it’s really the only way to get a fantasy setting to feel believable even though you try to get some of that old comic stuff in at times. Then you just let your design sense take over and you do your own twist on it. Didrik had a really great vision for AoC and how to get inspired by history but not copy it and the Art Bible he set up for AoC was comprehensive, detailing out each culture and what fitted them and not. It’s quite complex really, creating a good fantasy setting. You can mix stuff from different timelines, but you have to be wary so you don’t make it feel unrealistic. Howard could be really crazy and mixing stuff from the 19th century in some stories with things from ancient Rome in others for example, his stories didn’t always make sense in a historic fashion. So you really had to think about what can we use in AoC and what would just feel out of place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when I was designing some building or artifact I would first make a design board with photos from different things I thought would work for that. Then I would get inspired by that and design something new from it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Robert E.Howard wrote some very vivid descriptions of buildings in Hyboria, were you using those descriptions for inspiration?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, absolutely. Though we tried to bring some sanity into it. Howard could be really descriptive about certain details and didn’t really bother with the big picture at times. But it was always a pleasure trying create something from the inspiration of Howards writing, I always took a pleasure in trying to get the details in there. Like for example purple minarets in Paikang, though they turned into purple roofed pagodas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Tell us a bit about creating the art for Khitai expansion in general. There are hardly any descriptions of Khitai in REH books and very few Conan comics so Funcom had to create whole country from scratch.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doing Khitai was a business decision. We had heard rumors from management that the next expansion was going east. We all hoped to be doing Turan, Shem or something like that, maybe basing the work on the Tower of the elephant. It felt like the most logical thing to do. But upper management wanted to break into the asian market. Around the time we started the work on Khitai our Art Director, Didrik Tollefsen, got the chance to work as a consultant on the Conan movie that was in the works at the time, that ended up being the horrible one with Karl Drogo as Conan, and left for that. Just after that the subscription numbers on AoC was starting to drop really fast due to the lack of quality content on later levels, so our director Gaute resigned from Funcom. Craig Morrison took over the management of AoC and Stian Dahlslett came in as Art Director, both of them had been working on Anarchy Online prior to that and I was promoted to Assistant Art Director and Lead Concept Artist. So the production of Rise of the Godslayer or Road to Khitai as it was called back then got off to a really rocky start. But it ended up being one of the smoothes productions in the history of Funcom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That being said, Khitai is easily my least favourite region we designed for AoC. Our Khitai is very much based on ancient China, if you travel to the Forbidden City in Beijing and walk around there you will feel like you’re walking around in some city in Khitai, and a lot of the temple ruins were based on Khmer ruins. The clothing and armor designs have a much more modern feeling than that we had done earlier, and we have things like wolf mounts and tiger mounts which belongs in the high fantasy type of setting we tried to avoid with AoC. The quality of the art is a lot better in RotGS though, but all in all when we did Khitai it never really felt like we we’re doing a setting in the Hyborian Age. But I think it did turn out looking really good anyway and Joel managed to get a nice twist to the story which felt very in line with Howards writing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>House of Crom is the most unique area in Age of Conan when it comes to the visuals. Tell us more about your ideas and inspirations that went into HOC.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Directly after the concept art team had finished work on Hyborian Adventures we started working on dungeons for upcoming patches, this was around March-April 2008. The first one we did was an Acheronian Dungeon in Thunder River, which was later named Xibaluku. When that was finished we moved over to a dungeon that had been in the works ever since the project had started back in 2004-2005, House of Crom. This was a mammoth of a dungeon, the size of it was like a whole playfield of it’s own. There was a lot of old design documents to build upon and I think the dungeon was supposed to be released around the same time as Ymir’s Pass, so it was sort of tied into that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had hinted a lot of atlantean designs throughout the Cimmerian playfields but House of Crom was where we really got the chance to explore that. The Atlantean design was an expansion of what Ron Cobb, the production designer of the film Conan the Barbrian (1982), had developed for the movie. Mixing historic designs from both the Mayan and Norse cultures it made for a really compelling and unique look. We really took off with that and visualized an enormous underground city that had been frozen for centuries. It had lots of secret rooms and interesting puzzles for the players to solve. We we’re going for an Indiana Jones sort of feeling with a lot of adventure and booby traps. We also used the connection between Howard and Lovecraft for this dungeon and had a giant squid like creature designed to be the final boss.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last but not least: the Dark Cathedral. It was supposed to be a map for PVP minigames and even after 7 years of games release people are still asking about it (more info: </span><a href="http://www.katsbits.com/articles/age-of-conan/making-hyborian-adventures.php" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.katsbits.com/<wbr></wbr>articles/age-of-conan/making-<wbr></wbr>hyborian-adventures.php</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Could you possibly tell us what was that map all about?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think this was supposed to be a Capture the flag type of map. This was done during the end of the production of Hyborian Adventures. There was a lot of dungeons that just was created without any proper art direction then, it was sort of like the wild west. The concept art team got these handed to us to try and salvage them. Me and another concept artist, Fred Rambaud, got the job of trying and fix these. I was handed Dark Cathedral and 2 or 3 more dungeons to work on. Dark Catherdral was supposed to be something Aquilionian, but the geometry the level designer had used for it wasn’t really close to how the Art Bible said Aquilonian architecture should look, he had just made up his own stuff. It had lots of rounded arches for example, which was a big no no. It couldn’t really be salvaged without too much rework but I tried my best. I think most us was quite happy that these never was released.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 17.664px;">photo of </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 17.664px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Alex Tornberg </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 17.664px;">by Shashank Uchil (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 17.664px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://512x512.com/">http://512x512.com</a>/)</span></span></div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-19374457986692649432015-10-01T07:06:00.000-07:002015-10-01T07:06:15.117-07:0065.000 kills - season finale (on Crom)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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While this wasn't really posted on the blog some of you that follow me on twitter/facebook know that I have moved to Crom about a month or so and also joined one of the most renown raiding guilds in AOC's history: Destiny. Upon my arrival to Crom I had to kiss my name goodbye and rebrand my assassin as "Sliith". That was a pisser but such is a prices for moving to a different server (on top of 20 EURO price tag). I have had nothing but positive experience with Destiny folks and they were kind enough to offer me spot on their T5 raiding team. The vibe was great and the raid team was as skilled as you can get so T5 boss killing was, as expected from any established raiding guild, a farm. Yet somehow I couldn't really get into raiding mindset and with each raid I felt more and more like I am doing a chore rather than enjoying a privilege of T5 access. While epiphany of "shit, I might not be into raiding after all" was neither sudden nor really an epiphany it became painfully evident that I have zero business changing out on Crom for PVE reasons. Looking back at my raiding experience so far it's pretty obvious that whenever I was really doing any regular raids it was in order to get PVE gear for PVP. It was at that time when PVE weapons were superior to PVP weapons and it was common for people to raid T4 (or at least farm cloud) in order to get them weaps. I am very much a min/maxer kind of guy so I will grab an upgrade to my character if I can. Also it's not like I need an edge over other players but I hate being at disadvantage and that was the case with PVE weapons at that time: those were just so much better. In my humble opinion raiding as a whole just went to shit-town on Fury. Of course pure PVPers dropping from raiding all of sudden had a snowball effect with more and more people leaving for Crom. Since there is nothing in PVE that I would really want being at PVE server discouraged me more and more from logging on. I quickly realized that I am missing a vital part of AOC: open world pvp. It's not like open world pvp is all that wide spread on Fury, but I like the idea of it: at any given moment you might get jumped (aka ganked). For me removing that feeling/idea by transferring to Crom has made AOC experience bland and tasteless, it was no longer brutal Hyboria but rather <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIUVhSYVOdk">some kind of la la land</a>. This isn't a jab at Crom players, its just my honest assessment of what I like in AOC and what it felt like to lose it. Of course "the grass is greener on the other side" was also a factor in my server transfer. Crom, at least in my mind, was a shiny beacon of evermore good stuff. More players. More content. More activities. That turned out to be a lie (or to be more frank: I was delusional about it). Crom has more PVE activity for sure, but that is it. It is NOT Fury server II with everything better. It's just different and that doesn't translate into "its just better". Prime example? World Bosses. I am not a huge fan of thing content, but at least on Fury you had to group up into a raid and then mind the gankers trying to strip your out of your boss rewards. That was part of the fun. On Crom? You just wack the boss into oblivion and the excitement lies in rushing into another instance to tackle another boss and doing it before the said instance gets filled with people.<br />
Minigames on Crom are just about the same like on Fury. So if you are like me and you like: PVP as main activity, soloing achievements (quests, panoramas, treasures) and doing occasional dungeon run then Crom has nothing to offer you. If anything the experience will be worsts on Crom, at least I found that true for me.<br />
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So I have buckled up, ponied up another 20 EURO and went back to Fury where I have re-claimed name "Slith" and my spot in Clan of The Free City guild. In effect, if it wasn't for 40 EURO billed to my credit card, no one could have ever suspected that at one point I have walked the lush PVE fields of Crom server. <br />
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But this episode was supposed to be about 65.000 kills mark. So yeah, that's a thing now. I have heard a rumor that some were around 67 k the kill counter restarts to 0. Is it true? Well, I am about to find out soon enough.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBQLEhzlYX8">Welcome back Fury, I missed you. </a></div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-1130023325039111962015-08-10T23:22:00.002-07:002015-08-10T23:22:38.269-07:00Deconstructing hyboria - interview analysis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/07/interview-with-matt-cirith-gorgor.html">talking to Cirith in recent interview</a> I feel like doing some post-mortem on it and giving you my piece of mind on the shape and the direction that Hyboria is taking.<br />
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Dungeon/Raid finder vs Crafting revamp: I haven't actually seen anyone being absolutely appalled by the development decision of giving D/R finder a priority over the long over-due crafting revamp. What is D/R finder? Its a sign up system that works pretty much like a minigame queue: you just pick dungeon/raid, select your role (deeps, heals, tank) sign up and wait to be teleported with your newly found group into the dungeon (at least I assume THAT'S what it is). It's a MMO industry standard that both AOC and TSW need to adhere to remain viable and somewhat current. Of course since it's in World of Warcraft it is pretty much in every game. I have had my taste of it <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/10/age-of-conan-is-my-teh-hardcorez-mmo.html">when dabbled with WoW</a> and I liked it. Current, very very dated model of just spamming LFG chat with "LF KK run, exp/gear/perks" is not only super old, but also a major content-wall that keeps new players form experiencing all the dungeons that are out there (hell, I still need to do a lot of dungeons). Besides I don't think crafting revamp would be all that successful since <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/10/t5-loot-update-44-and-new-era-for-aoc.html">AOC stats system is all fucked</a>. Current model rewards stacking very few select stats (crit and combat/magic rating) and I am pretty sure crafting revamp would result in either cranking out only sub par items that were only usable to modestly geared characters or an arms race in which people would create items en mass in order to hit that perfect stack of crit/combat/magic rating that would go beyond the T4 budget stats wise. Both scenarios would be a let down. AOC team needs to make a spot on decision for the content just <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/03/joel-is-no-longer-master-of-it-all.html">like they did with achievements</a>. Pouring resources into crafting and not having it be <a href="http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/second-coming-jesus">anything less than the second coming of Jesus</a> would be a proverbial nail in AOC coffin (and them nails just keep on coming as prophesied by forum posters...since 2008).<br />
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When it comes to Tales of Hyboria which are new adventure packs its no secret that <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2015/05/shadow-of-vanaheim-review.html">I am less than enthustastic about it's first installment</a>. I really didn't want to ask questions like "how come Shadows of Vanaheim aka Shadows of Cimmeria Reloaded suck?"and to my surprise I got a reply exactly to that unasked question. SOV was a rushed and overpriced content. What I was afraid of seeing is something straight out of American Psycho where main character commits heinous crimes and gets away with it for no apparent reason. I am not against Tales of Hyboria per se, hell if its done right then bring it on! The interview gave me hope for the future that we won't see another blunder like SOV. And I have to agree that with AOC being strapped for cash (Khitai sized expansion is out of the question) the only way that we can see those cool locations pulled straight out of the lore are bite-sized adventures like SOV (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LC0JjvAJt8">I mean not like that, but also like that</a>). I would love to see Aquilonia and Nemedia go at each other throats (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKLOrcO--Z8">Border Range in Wild Lands</a> could be used for that) with Conan joining the battle along with the players (get that lazy bastard of out that castle!). What else? Well obviously Hyperborea is overdue! Just fix price..and quality..and replayability..and story and I am all over that next adventure pack!<br />
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I am bummed out by two things: both PvP additions and progression systems are probably years away. I mean placing them on a the development timeline next to "sometime after crafting revamp" is pretty much saying "<a href="http://www.twoagespilgrims.com/doctrine/will-moses-and-elijah-come-back/">it will be ready when Moses comes back</a>". Solo arena, when and if its ready, won't fill any need that s<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2011/02/age-of-conan-pvp-fail-by-design.html">olo group pvp minigames</a> are not already providing (those are providing mostly misery for all involved). I don't see good things in AOC pvp and onslaught of people coming from Fury to Crom (yours truly included) only show that PvPers are in "abandon all hope" mode.<br />
Well, at least we will get that one server tech soon enough, eh? *wink* (and if you don't get my wink I will be blunt: everyone will eventually transfer to Crom and two remaining pvp servers will be an empty shells).<br />
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So we all just might as well jump with both feets into raiding because this is where AOC will be at for the years to come.<br />
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-71241214345510920762015-07-25T12:30:00.002-07:002015-07-25T12:30:25.093-07:00Interview with Matt 'Cirith Gorgor” Bennett - July of 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;">CirithGorgor joined me at The Hideout for a second time to talk all things Hyboria. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;">CirithGorgor brings his no nonsense approach on few major issues... but I will let you be the judge of that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>1/
Lets start with proverbial elephant in the room: with Joel Bylos
stepping down as Game Director who is in charge of AOC? Who makes the
high level decisions about priorities and content? And most
importantly: this "directorless" state is permanent or are
we in some sort of transition?</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">So,
since I rejoined the team around 3 years ago now, setting the
direction of the game in terms of content and system releases had
always been a 3-way thing between me, the producer and the former
director. Now of course that is a 2-way thing between me and the
producer, for me that is the direction of anything related to my
sphere of influence, specifically content and the majority of the
game systems, while the producer is more involved with setting the
direction on a business model side.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">So really not much has changed
except there is nobody with the title game director, “setting the
direction of the game” is part of my job description. I know as
there are no formal 'game director letters' it might seem from a
player perspective that there is no direction, but I simply don't
have time for these as they are more time consuming than you might
think (I have done a few in the past as you may know) and I believe
my time is better spent on developing said content instead, so rather
I pass on information on what I have been doing to Sezmra and she
takes it from there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">Is
this likely to change, no, and I don't think it needs to, the only
thing I possibly see changing is myself being more influential on the
business side of things too, which is something we have talked about
internally.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">2/
Crafting update. There is no way around asking about it since it’s
in the development for 3 years now. Is there a major setback that
makes the update too complicated? Is it less of a priority than,
shall we say Cetriss? This is the only time I will ask about release
timeframe: is there one?</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">So
the crafting update was started at a time when the team was much,
much larger than it is right now and it was possible for there to be
a focus on multiple systems/areas of content at the same time. This
has not been the case for a while now and realistically we can only
work on 1 thing at a time, before moving on to focusing on something
else.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Crafting
requires code work, quite a lot of code work, before it is final and
this is at an absolute premium even more so as it is shared across
the live team. Now the next task for the code team will be to add
dungeon/raid finder system which will be usable for both AoC and TSW.
I know people will say that the crafting system should be the
priority, but here I will strongly disagree, a dungeon finder with
linked systems and rewards for daily dungeons/raids I believe is more
important to the long term longevity of the game. Bringing more
people together into social situations where guilds can form/recruit
and allowing more players to access our dungeons and raids which I
believe stand up there with the absolute best in any MMO. This is a
feature which is overdue and creates a lot of opportunities for the
game and it is rightfully a top priority.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">However,
once this system is in place the current plan is then to move the
code resources to finishing the crafting system. After the code is
finished it will allow the final few steps to be completed on the
content side, such as the placement of new resource nodes and the
removal of the old quest based crafting.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">However,
one of the biggest problems with this revamp is that it has been
promised and hinted at for so long and those promises have never
turned into reality due to numerous complications, cuts and factors
both controllable and uncontrollable. Therefore I do not want to
promise anything in regards to crafting and will not give a date for
this feature as it is ultimately outside of my control
(specialization).</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">3/
Achievement system is without doubt very successful, but very
inconsistent when it comes to rewards: first points milestones grant
exciting stuff like runes and pets and then its all about titles &
unlocks. Is there a plan to include more said rewards or the system
encourages getting achievements for the sake of achieving stuff? Will
the system be expanded in some way in the future or will it be just
adding volume (more of already existing achievements types as we get
more content).</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This
is the way the rewards for the system were designed. The utility
items are set to lower ranks (which still require some work and
dedication to the game) but which are perceived as 'achievable' by
anyone, be that a 7 year veteran or someone rolling their first
character. The worst thing to do with this sort of system would be to
hide all the useful rewards away so that only a minority of the
player base will get them and so a new player looks at the system and
says forget it. This is also why the utility rewards are tied into
points rather than specific achievements, so that players are not
forced to play the game a certain way.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This
is therefore why pure vanity (titles, mounts etc...) are set to
higher achievement point ranks or much harder
achievements/meta-achievements, there is a visual confirmation of
your accomplishment but beyond that it’s there for the sake of
being an 'achievement'.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Is
there the potential for adding more rewards, yes of course, but
utility rewards will follow the direction of 'being achievable by
anyone' and not heavily gated. Possible exceptions here might be a
reward which is only useful in end game raids or dungeons and in this
case there is the possibility of tying it into more restrictive
criteria, but for now that remains a possibility with no design
beyond that and such rewards are more likely to be tied directly to
that gated content directly.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">The
system will be expanded in volume, of course; when any new content or
system release comes out it will have relevant achievements made, so
there will be new things on each major patch. There will be a whole
new sub section added along with the arenas for example.</span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Something
we have also been looking into is linking the achievement system with
the dungeon/raid finder which is in the works</span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">.
This would allow us to not only offer daily dungeons but also the
potential for daily achievements, such as completing the Adept trial
timer for a given dungeon on a given day, repeating a certain solo
dungeon or quest, or additional daily pvp goals.</span></span></span></div>
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">Whether
these sorts of things would be rewarded with achievement points or
some other existing or new reward is too early to say.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">4/
Lets talk PvP: while pvp got some much needed focus in recent times
it still doesn't provide any means of progression as new content just
gives XP to get to pvp lvl 10 faster. PvP Tier 4 gear got mentioned
in one of the letters, is it still on the table? What about grouping
with friends for minigames? Minigames are most popular pvp content
and it's a solo experience that you can't enjoy with friends, are
there plans to change/adjust that (much requested ability to be able
to sign up with 2-3 people). What about that minigame that was
supposed to come along with Dragon Spine? It was supposed to be tied
in some way to the DS content, do you have any new info on it?</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">Currently
with the resources assigned to the project we are focusing on one
thing at a time.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">Yes T4 PvP gear is still something we want to do,
but there are a number of challenges. Progression in PvP is a double
edged sword. Players want to progress so they have a reason to
compete, I get that, but at the same time any vertical progression
increases the gap between entry level PvP and the top of the
progression pyramid. What I would like to do is for T4 to become
horizontal, by giving more utility through set bonuses or new
abilities but that is not a simple thing to achieve. Sure I could
throw out a new vertical progression set in not too long, but that
would not be the best thing to do for the game.</span></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">As
I mentioned before, I don't like to make any promises that I know I
can not deliver myself if I have to. Changes to the mini-game signup
up are 100% locked to the code base, and I am not a coder, therefore
it comes down to prioritizing those code changes against all other
code tasks.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There
are pending tasks for looking into the sign up system when it comes
to the small scale team arena which has been previously talked about.
The team version can't work the same way as the solo one due to
there simply being too many variable conditions to handle inside a
script. When this signup system is looked at for the team arena that
would be a great time to also look into making any changes to the
minigame signup system. Whether or not any such changes are simple or
not will become apparent at that time.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">As
for a minigame set in Dragon's Spine, this is something which was
promised along time ago, by a team which has considerably more
resources available than now. If a new pvp map is added the setting
could be Dragon's Spine, but it’s equally likely to be an
Acheronian ruin a Khitan temple or somewhere in the Northern wilds. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">5/
AAs and new weapon types for existing archetypes sound very exciting:
will it be a major shift in the way we are playing the game or is it
more of a cosmetic thing where, for example, assassin will perform
same combos only with swords? Will new AAs be tied to some new
content or will it work like AAs we already have? A lot of people are
fully unlocked AAs on more than one character and are getting more
free AA points daily (there is no AA points cap) won't they be able
to just buy ALL new AAs on the day they are launched?</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This
was hinted at in one of the previous letters I believe, but the
current design (which is still subject to potential change) is to
require both the use of AA points (existing ones) and also utilize
new systems and content as they are released. So for an example if we
were adding a new combo for the assassin, you would first need to add
the combo to your AA tree. Think of this part like a drop or a
vendor item (similar to the upgraded combos which came which Khitai)
except instead of instantly getting the combo a-la Khitai this would
then add it to your AA tree as something you can spend your AA points
on.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
logic behind this is that we still want AA points to be relevant and
not punish players who capped them out long ago; however, we don't
want everyone to just instantly have everything the second any
additions go live without having to massively inflate the price and
completely shut out new players from the system. This is still very
much a work in progress and I don't see it happening until some time
after the crafting revamp.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
current design has progression going in three ways. Firstly, new
weapon types and spell schools are intended to add new ways to play
the class, e.g. adding a Javelin to Guardians, throwing axes to the
Barbarian, 1 handed blunts for the Bear Shaman or opening up melee to
a Priest of Mitra with a blunt/shield combo or unholy spells to a ToS
with a dagger/trinket combo, I'm still talking very high level here
though so don't quote any of this as the guaranteed additions.
Secondly, we want to add horizontal options to existing play styles
such as an additional soldier stance for guarding a pvp objective,
more options to replace those slotted general perks which could be a
bit more interesting (like a big boost to critigation at the expense
of damage) , or making slotting for different situations a bit more
common. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Then
finally upgrading existing abilities with significantly higher
resource costs (this element is likely to be limited to PvE).</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Obviously
these changes are pretty ambitious and will take quite a while to
implement.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">6/
Palace of Cetriss will have two modes, can you elaborate more on
that? Where are you putting Palace on the "gear check"
scale: will fully geared character with Khitai epic be able to
contribute to the raid group in a manfully way or will full T4 or
even T5 be required for "hard mode" version of T6? What
about T6 gear? Will we see already existing "Dragon Spine"
designs or will we get totally new models? Will T6 gear have same set
bonuses like T5 or will we get something totally new?</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Lets
talk balance first, the regular (hard mode) version of Palace of
Cetriss will have its earlier encounters initially balanced around
the T4 range, where I would expect that at least for DPS and Healing
purposes you ought to be able to at least be useful in Khitai epics
too. The Palace encounters at least for the T6 progression version
does have a lot of raid wide damage by design, so survivability
should be a consideration. The later encounters will be balanced to
be tougher though (bosses 4-6), as you would expect, and if you are
not in the best gear at this point you are likely to struggle.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Though
if you are not in one of the top progression guilds don't be too
disheartened at that. It is really important to me that when we make
new content it reaches the maximum number of players, that's how we
can justify spending the right amount of time and resources on it.
Therefore a few changes will be coming in. Firstly, there are going
to be balance changes made to all raids in T3, T3.5 and T4. These
changes are intended to make these instances much more Pick Up Group
friendly and overall much more forgiving. That does mean certain
mechanics are being removed, but I only see this as a positive thing
in order to open them up to more players. I stand by the belief that
our raid encounters are as good as or better than those in any MMO
out there and the more people who can enjoy that the better the game
population will be. The consequence of this is that more and more
players will be geared to the point where they can attempt progress
within T5 (which will likely see some balance changes of its own at a
later date) and T6.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Secondly,
as you mentioned, we are looking at adding a more casual version of
Palace of Cetriss, so that we really can bring the story and
encounters to as many players as possible.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">So
the main question is how are we going to do that? I've already
mentioned earlier the fact that we are working on a dungeon/raid
finder system, and my goal is to bring Palace of Cetriss' more casual
mode into that system for its launch. This is likely to be a little
while after release of the Hard Mode, giving progression raids
opportunity to compete for world firsts etc...</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
raid finder will offer more casual and forgiving mechanics, but of
course the loot will not be quite as good. My goal will also be to
bring T3 – T4 into the raid finder at the same time as Palace of
Cetriss, so that all players can experience the climaxes of our main
storylines.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Gear:
are we going to have 12 or more completely unique armor sets?
Unfortunately we do not currently have the resources for that, 12
completely unique gear sets each comprising of 8 pieces really do
take a lot of time and effort to produce. Will there be new and
interesting looking gear appropriate for the Dragon's Spines primal
location? Yes for sure. There will be 4 new base styles of armor (as
there are in the dungeons of Dragon's Spine, though not the same
visuals), there will then be between 2 to 4 color variations of each
of those base styles, offering some difference between shared armor
styles.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">For
set bonuses, if I evaluate honestly the set bonuses from T5, then
they achieved some of their goals but fell short on others. They
offer different and more interesting ways in which character
progression is offered and potential trade offs which give meaningful
choices and avoiding a major impact on PvP. However, they were
extremely time consuming and difficult to set up and balance.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">We
do want to keep set bonuses but realistically with efficiency being
very important they can't be sustained in the same fashion. A more
likely outcome will be more generic set bonuses which will set
characters up for T7 by adding and accumulating new PvE stats like
armor and spell penetration, tenacity and perhaps critigation chance.
The goal will still be to offer some meaningful choices on some gear
slots. T6 gear, unlike T5, is going to see an increase to the stat
budget, but with PvP consequences coming as part of those set bonuses
too.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Weapons
and accessories will probably see their own mini set bonuses like in
T5 too, with some of these accessories coming from the final Dragon's
Spine dungeon, more on that later.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">7/Servers:
is the company dead set on keeping 3 rule sets (pvp, pve and rage) or
will Rage be folded as some point due to lack of population?</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If
I were able to make the decision right now, yes I would merge Rage
into Fury (likewise enable those transfers). It’s not a positive
thing for a new player to start on a server with a very low
population like this.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">However,
this isn't a decision I can make, but I hope this will be the outcome
at some point.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">8/
Notification system would be a much welcomed addition to rather
clunky text based messages for things like PvP events. Is this
something you are still in active development or is it pushed further
down the line?</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">With
the resources to work on only one thing at a time it is hard to
prioritize this, for now it is pushed back. New features like the
Palace of Cetriss, the dungeon finder and solo arenas will take
priority as they add new content.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">9/Adventure
pack was rather surprising addition as there were no hints that the
company is working on it. Are the more coming in the future? Will
those packs have same structure meaning: existing zones re-worked as
new instances? Could you give us more information about planned
release schedule? Is it something we will see regularly or will it be
a once in a while thing?</b></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
do stand by the fact that I believe the concept of 'Tales of Hyboria'
or scenarios, are a good addition to the game. There is a whole
Hyborian world available out there and opening more of that up can
only be a good thing. The short scenario style means the development
cycle is fairly short ensuring it does not push back other important
features too much.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">However,
while I think certain things went well; there are others which were
disappointing and need to change if we go down this route again.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Firstly,
we need to spend more time on the side quests to add more variety to
the gameplay and not just sending players to different parts of the
zone.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Secondly,
new assets need to be used. This doesn't mean a whole zone full of
architecture not seen elsewhere in the game, that's unrealistic for
any game, but key features should be unique and indicative of the
culture where they are located. Indoor locations are more likely to
see reuse, though I’d like to be able to spend a bit more time
decorating the interiors in a different way, which unfortunately I
was not able to do in Vanaheim.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Thirdly,
the price of the standard release needs to be adjusted or combined
into a subscription offer.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Lastly,
a larger amount of development time needs to be set asides for polish
and bug finding/fixing. For Shadows of Vanaheim, we were racing
against a fixed deadline (which itself was a mistake), which meant
that there wasn't enough time left after everything was functional to
polish the content to the extent it deserves.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This
is an honest assessment of how I feel this release went, but what I
do want to emphasize is that we are aware of what went wrong, what
players didn't like and which design goals fell short and if we do
introduce another Tale of Hyboria then we will focus on correcting
these mistakes.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Currently
we haven't started any development on another scenario, but there are
a few story ideas we have floating around, including, tracing Conan
and Belit's steps in the jungles of Kush/The Black Kingdoms,
venturing into the city of ghouls on the Zingaran border, delving
into the depths of the under city of Messantia or raiding the
abandoned desert city of Ababenzzar in Shem.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">We
would certainly be interested in hearing from players what areas of
Hyboria they would like to be able to visit too though.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 0.46cm;"><b style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua', serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 0.46cm;">10/
the Slithering Chaos is the last dungeon in the Dragon Spine series:
is it still on the table or are the two separate modes for Cetriss
filling that need for a content update for everyone?</b></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Yeah,
it’s still on the cards, and I appreciate that it can be
frustrating not hearing any updates on it. Slithering Chaos is still
unfortunately blocked due to animation dependencies though. Yes I
have seen the video which was leaked showing certain animations
functional, but a few animations working for the sake of a portfolio
video is not the same thing as having all animations functional in a
combat environment. I would like to have this dungeon complete
shortly after the dungeon finder is made available and if necessary
the encounters will be redesigned to accommodate the animations which
are functional as a last resort. The boss is pretty epic for this
location so it is not going to be cut.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">One
thing worth mentioning is that the Slithering Chaos has always been
designed with a slightly modified reuse of the Sepulcher of the Wyrm
location. You didn’t think your actions in there were without
consequence did you?</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There
is also a distinct possibility of several more unchained dungeons
being added to our existing dungeon pool. The most obvious one here
is the Onyx Chambers which will receive a complete overhaul (hence
its absence from the achievement system), but this is likely to be
combined with another smaller dungeon, such as Toirdealbach's Tomb,
or the Crow's Nest.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 0.46cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif; line-height: 0.46cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>/bow </b></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif; line-height: 0.46cm;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">thank you </span></span><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 17.3858261108398px;">CirithGorgor for taking the time to update the community on key stuff!</span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br />
</div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-83770556010440260522015-05-22T00:01:00.000-07:002015-05-24T12:55:56.421-07:00Shadow of Vanaheim review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOuPLDkz9YAJZ1WXEi92j81zEwLp07c9N5pWk2Qf5KTRlAvhXe2p9aril1wfN1-zvZPIGZ24j0SmP40XaCUbTlshIRuwA3xk26j1Sb-LcJz7z3ZdKAHLCiKfTMthiiB43T5MGyu17I8Ks0/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOuPLDkz9YAJZ1WXEi92j81zEwLp07c9N5pWk2Qf5KTRlAvhXe2p9aril1wfN1-zvZPIGZ24j0SmP40XaCUbTlshIRuwA3xk26j1Sb-LcJz7z3ZdKAHLCiKfTMthiiB43T5MGyu17I8Ks0/s400/5.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sitting down to write this post I feel overwhelmed. Sadly not by positive experience I have had with the new adventure pack (can you legally call it that?), but the amount of bullshit just keeps stacking up and seems like I am the man with a shovel.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am writing this post for 3 reasons: I want YOU, the reader to make an informed decision when buying adventure pack, I want Funcom to understand that his is unacceptable and above all <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtfCRaNg5EU">I'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore</a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Communication</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Before I dive deep into content itself I want to scold the company for making a catastrophe in terms of communicating with it's player base.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Monthly development update reads:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Age of Conan celebrates its seventh anniversary later this month, and our team wants to make it a memorable one! We are introducing brand new Membership deals and will hold an anniversary celebration with great bonuses along with all new content" </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"This year's celebratory content is going to be epic, so don't miss out on it! This new story line will be available to characters at level 20, scaling up to level 80. Our plan is for this new content to be a good source of XP for characters that are currently leveling. The max level characters will also benefit from the range of gear which will complement existing gear from other areas of the game.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>We've got something for everyone during the anniversary! Happy Birthday Hyboria, here's to another year of thrilling adventures!"</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/monthly_development_update_may_2015">Monthly Development Update – May 2015</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As you can see NOT A WORD on how the company is going to charge both premium subscribers and F2P crowd 1575 FP for regular content pack access and 2700 FP for collectors edition.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This was supposed to be an anniversary update! Now I might not be a senior community manager (or even a big fan of cookies), but I am a big believer in a common sense and a god damned courtesy and above all I am certain those still apply in a MMO space.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So a reality check: read the following and ask yourselves "is this even slightly acceptable in the real life"?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>"happy anniversary baby! Now pay me 20$ if you want me to take your out for a dinner".</i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Don't answer that, its rhetorical. We all know that that after that what would happen next would be something straight out of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTqfrG28HQM">Hell Hath No Fury Like A WOMAN SCORNED</a>" (don't ask me how I know that reference).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?191941-What-is-the-deal-with-the-new-patch">22 pages thread poped up</a> and people got furious (and apparently fast too!).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This resulted in small post from Funcom representative:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Naturally, we've been reading up on the feedback you've all provided us. Let me say that The Shadow of Vanaheim content pack was in no way intended to infuriate our player base. We want you to enjoy playing Age of Conan, to have fun!</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Our intention was to release new store items that would be obtained in a more engaging way: through new content. Instead of purchasing a new item and it then be delivered to you without any real fanfare, you'd go out and experience a new adventure tied to it while still adding to your growing collection of vanity armors or mounts. I admit that the timing of the Anniversary might have reinforced assumptions, but that was not our intention. We'd like to move forward with releases such as these, providing newer, more inventive ways of customizing your experience. We felt that debuting the first of these during Age of Conan's anniversary was a way to celebrate the game's longevity.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Your frustration is not lost on us though, and we sincerely apologize for any confusion or disappointment this release has caused. Please continue to provide feedback regarding Age of Conan, we are listening and will review each concern brought to us. Just visit help.funcom.com to share your feedback.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Thanks for your understanding, folks".</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Source: <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?191978-The-Shadow-of-Vanaheim">The Shadow of Vanaheim</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This kind of miscommunication is something that Kickstarter based small indie game developer might commit, but its not to be expected from company that boast it's MMO presence dating back to 2001. You sirs learned nothing!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And this is just history repeating itself as some of you <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/05/1-year-of-fail-failcom-fails-not-to.html">might remember the first anniversary</a> and the following reads just like recent post:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"The announcement of this happening might have lead many players to expect a bit more than it actually was intended to deliver. The main idea was to provide a place where players can gather to celebrate and maybe use their firework items in bigger masses and get great screenshots for the competition described in the last newsletter than it is usually possible.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>So the 'festivities' in front of Conan's castle are there to give players a point where they can meet, buy food and drink and celebrate.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>We apologize if some expected more and are now disappointed. "</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You might have just as well copy/paste that message and just do some basic editing. Here I will do it for you:</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"The announcement of this happening might have lead many players to expect a bit more than it actually was intended to deliver. The main idea was to provide adventure pack that players can buy a to celebrate.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>So the 'anniversary event' is there to give players a content that they can buy and celebrate.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>We apologize if some expected more and are now disappointed. "</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But enough of that, that is NOT the main issue (its just a lack of professional integrity on Funcom's part), lets go over why the adventure pack is just not worth buying:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Business model</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The last time Funcom wanted us to pay for a new content was Savage Coast of Turan update.<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2011/09/savage-rip-off-coast-not-included.html"> I wasn't happy about paying for it</a>, but it was a quality content and it was substantial. The content pack had new visuals and assets (armors, music, textures etc.), good story, dungeon, 2 solo dungeons, proper zone and new raid (but I can't really comment on it). And to think that I felt ripped off by THAT. I would pay for it again if it meant holding Funcom to those standards. You want to know how big is the new adventure pack? It is smaller than Dead Mans Hand. That is right: content that costs almost half the amount the Turan (for collectors edition) is shorter than it's ONE solo dungeon and contains no new assets.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What are you charging me for then? I am a subscriber, you get my money every month. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In all honesty the quality of the content pack (or lack of it) doesn't justify even selling the pack to the F2P player base. Its a money grab. Selling someone a product that it is worth its money is a transaction, this is just making a sale with a few vague information about the product and then grabbing customers money and running away hoping that before he learns what a horror he bought you will be far enough and still have his money. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Zones and assets</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The new adventure pack is pretty much old zones (Conall Valley, Atzel's Approach and Fortress) mashed together with some mobs sprinkled all over it. Every were you look you will recognize the already existing assets with maybe a small tweaks (which are few). The whole experience of moving between the zones feels like "adventure on rails" because you either can't go anywhere where the devs don't want you (Conalls Valley) or the zone is so small that there's just no were else to go but to stick to the main path. Its just same old same old.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOIV2U0izAwCMllTiR2Qjf8gUFHsWf5LZGajClfd8_bxXNpfirGCVtci5UWcOrWIq3PPQaMhT5UhEMWI-JEHvXxu2P_zgr0l0cCEMAOt0066LVUMVi6JX6E7_OaKxiLrLob68ATiRCEaRW/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOIV2U0izAwCMllTiR2Qjf8gUFHsWf5LZGajClfd8_bxXNpfirGCVtci5UWcOrWIq3PPQaMhT5UhEMWI-JEHvXxu2P_zgr0l0cCEMAOt0066LVUMVi6JX6E7_OaKxiLrLob68ATiRCEaRW/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Quests</b><br />
The main story is very short and it can be prolonged only by endless killing of pretty tough mobs that stand in your way of just burning through the quest. Oh you are a rogue class? Then you can stealth your way around and beat the whole thing in 30 minutes or so. The main quest is pretty much "kill this, kill that" and the side quests are the usuall "pick up axes and shields" or "pick up horse shit and throw into well" (I am not kidding). No new mechanics, no need for clever tactics or thinking in general.Re-runing the content was tedious and boring. Its nothing like Apostate in Kara Korum or Isle of Iron Statues in Ardashir: those are gems and I never got stick of them even after all those years.<br />
<br />
<b>Story</b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For some time I have complained about the quality of writing and this is all time low. I don't think I will spoil a lot (because there is not much story in general) if I will tell you that the whole story is about the mighty Thegn Heimdall being upset because Conan killed his dad. Boom! The ol' "revenge for killing a parent" cliche! And this is the whole story: kill everyone, get to Heimdall and kill him too. Even more disheartening are the dialogues: for a while now dialogues are written in a way that show our character is both aware that he is an invincible half-god walking the Hyboria and also a psychotic murder machine. Pretty much every dialogue ends with something like "Ok, I will fuck them up", "they are as good as dead", "I am on it to kill the people you told me to". Its cocky and disturbing. Also whoever wrote this tried to drop as many "big words" as they could into dialogue. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An Aesir warrior that does nothing but killing says "to reciprocate" *face palm*.</div>
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<b>Glitches</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I will let the screenshots do the talking. I could have provided more (like NPC stuck in the geometry), but this should give you the taste of how well the content pack is put together.</div>
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<br /></div>
Forum poster Khaletohep <a href="http://www.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/khaltorpicture5ytkz3vw9s.png">has even better list of bugs.</a><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Rewards</b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last and not least here are the rewards</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The bear mount, highlight of this adventure pack, is very low quality. Pretty much a mob that someone slapped a saddle on and told it "you are a mount now".</div>
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There are 3 NPC that sell stuff: one is for social items (cloaks, helms etc.), one has bear mounts and one has some items (those are class specific).</div>
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The content is repeatable and on 20 h cooldown. For just finishing the main story you will get 2 tokens and finishing the HM (which is not easy) will grant you 5.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT1gBnYkw7me0CdZ9_X-To45iU5WnJ-1p6J9BED2zmnmXjoqazUTUDDyZqEoH-UovK6f2bRorg0D13s1L-FlexBQzoP2Pa312NokEtv0UERC0JjhmxI-QLS9s5HeBNJxpYXcGLlr0Ed7hC/s1600/15.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT1gBnYkw7me0CdZ9_X-To45iU5WnJ-1p6J9BED2zmnmXjoqazUTUDDyZqEoH-UovK6f2bRorg0D13s1L-FlexBQzoP2Pa312NokEtv0UERC0JjhmxI-QLS9s5HeBNJxpYXcGLlr0Ed7hC/s320/15.png" width="172" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1GiAH2Vm45y1kt1xV_E3dR_SAFGLdPvh88uaL6MvEL5K-_cKSP8CSsGWHxbe1Q6_pb7LRFEQVI5nLmDgyDvRC8ZncpFQc3I0nBzQUoRe8TadIaFQyLr2ZPqfBTgqtlUyfuUPHeGnfNU8/s1600/14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1GiAH2Vm45y1kt1xV_E3dR_SAFGLdPvh88uaL6MvEL5K-_cKSP8CSsGWHxbe1Q6_pb7LRFEQVI5nLmDgyDvRC8ZncpFQc3I0nBzQUoRe8TadIaFQyLr2ZPqfBTgqtlUyfuUPHeGnfNU8/s320/14.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The proverbial "carrot" in this content is a very powerful ring and HM tokens which might interest players that don't have T4 accessories on their characters or still need more tokens.</div>
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I and I think a lot veterans need neither the ring nor the HM tokens (which we have nothing to spend on anyway). </div>
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<b>So to sum it up</b>:<br />
<br />
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If this adventure pack came as a "free" update to the subscribers I would deem it "OK-ish". There is nothing great about it, it has a lot of flaws, but at least its there. Its like eating in a fast food joint: yeah its bad, but at least its fast and after all its still is kinda-food. </div>
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Paying for this ON TOP of hefty subscription price? OH HELL NO.<br />
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<b>UPDATE:</b><br />
<br />
Seems like Funcom keeps shoving Shadow of Vanaheim down everyone's throats. It's marketing, I am fine with it. What I am not fine with is that all the communications read like SOV is a HUGE DEAL, a major content update. Its not! Lets do over <a href="http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/191/feature/9711/Age-of-Conan-Unchained-Shadow-of-Vanaheim-Matthew-Bennett-Interview-.html">the mmorpg.com </a>and check out the message there:<br />
<br />
"With Shadow, the team was able to unlock more areas of the Hyborian world and offer players a unique story to experience."<br />
<br />
- no area is unlocked. This is an instanced content that exists only a private zone for the player. It is nothing else that old Cimmeria with "Vanaheim" sticked slaped over it.<br />
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"Vanaheim was a great location in Conan’s past as they were the natural enemies of the Cimmerians"<br />
<br />
- who wrote this? Vanaheim is a country of Vanir, not people.<br />
<br />
"therefore the players get to experience some of the older lore aspects in the game and see what the lands would look like in the far north of the world."<br />
<br />
- they look exacly like Cimmeria because all the in game assets are related to Cimmeria<br />
<br />
"In working with the players they received six or seven proposals and eventually decided on Vanaheim as the focus of the story."<br />
<br />
- no one asked players about that, ever.<br />
<br />
"The update offers players some new instances for smaller groups, between one and three players."<br />
<br />
- I am sorry, instanceS? Plural? There is one instance and it scales with the amount of players going up to 3.<br />
<br />
"For hardcore veteran players it offers hard mode versions as well which will bring some competitive end game gear to their table"<br />
<br />
- 1 ring<br />
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<br />Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-32529847171900808682015-05-01T05:58:00.000-07:002015-05-01T06:03:04.096-07:00Lore Whore: Zenobia and world's longest pregnancy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQuaESsdrbrHrhN46LLgywV6ML9VMjdaKp-e5ECxaRtiZnH3W6E_oIxu6WA6YtHHXcKRZWRFQml-aaPkuw4KU3GbBg8uPCJkzZns-_gm3Q2oAS9QBm5fPvnC-iMamXflHKK2cUgo93p5v/s1600/440349-zenobia_photo02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQuaESsdrbrHrhN46LLgywV6ML9VMjdaKp-e5ECxaRtiZnH3W6E_oIxu6WA6YtHHXcKRZWRFQml-aaPkuw4KU3GbBg8uPCJkzZns-_gm3Q2oAS9QBm5fPvnC-iMamXflHKK2cUgo93p5v/s1600/440349-zenobia_photo02.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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Zenobia (pic to the left is a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/McFarlane-Toys-Conan-Series-Two/dp/B0007KL7BE">McFarlane Toys Conan Series Two</a>) has a very strange relation with Age of Conan, it's timeline, NPC and even developers themselves.</div>
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Zenobia is no were to be seen in game and as far as I know only 3 NPCs mention her: Pallantides, Conan and Countess Albiona.</div>
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Albiona only mentions special jewelry that Conan gave Zenobia. Conan, when asked about it, will simply say that "Zenobia is not here, man" and gets defensive about it (what are you? Jealous?)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9AZYKGaItM9ZBbSMQup0bq0POhvHRR_WiTkAEQDWPA0b4JV8iDFP0no9WRvcaTzpQ8vHMMJXBrqqHjF4twHTZSx1eQaW7BMV-J2t9wQB5lWljIGua4g9Hwp05G-FSapMqqQeF2jy1jb8/s1600/zen01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9AZYKGaItM9ZBbSMQup0bq0POhvHRR_WiTkAEQDWPA0b4JV8iDFP0no9WRvcaTzpQ8vHMMJXBrqqHjF4twHTZSx1eQaW7BMV-J2t9wQB5lWljIGua4g9Hwp05G-FSapMqqQeF2jy1jb8/s1600/zen01.png" height="283" width="320" /></a></div>
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A real gold to be mined comes from Pallantides dialogue.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5apl9pHGDfsVVChM69H2Ud_sSzaYK8kCBszYSX1s7f0O3JYh-djERgv8wVvBuMAiMI3JQsI7mV1hDmbuVfTLTOdfS2qnymFcOd0x3CX_7_atxGr0VQ043B47tID8zoaY7z7RClhnl4x5h/s1600/zen1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5apl9pHGDfsVVChM69H2Ud_sSzaYK8kCBszYSX1s7f0O3JYh-djERgv8wVvBuMAiMI3JQsI7mV1hDmbuVfTLTOdfS2qnymFcOd0x3CX_7_atxGr0VQ043B47tID8zoaY7z7RClhnl4x5h/s1600/zen1.png" height="247" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1gzRiAYsjyPuffqHJ4YfNixhaBQIrbe6dG1_7O7wsyyfO50i-DW1z0e27ZkPJn6Gqp41v98Ne67xjPu_tzzL6IM3Si4yZcs6Ur82RqaymUtXwaGk0bB1akmZiTsedYmVIylCbN9KvBULz/s1600/zen2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1gzRiAYsjyPuffqHJ4YfNixhaBQIrbe6dG1_7O7wsyyfO50i-DW1z0e27ZkPJn6Gqp41v98Ne67xjPu_tzzL6IM3Si4yZcs6Ur82RqaymUtXwaGk0bB1akmZiTsedYmVIylCbN9KvBULz/s1600/zen2.png" height="176" width="320" /></a></div>
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"Ah, now there's a wonder. She was a Seraglio girl who caught the king's eye after helping him escape the Iron Tower. She's beautiful beyond words, almost the match of the perfect Countess Albiona. She's heavy with child right now. As my blade guards the king, it guards the queen as well".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
First of all it establishes two truths about Zenobia: she is already married to the Conan and she is pregnant. This is a great indicator about when exactly Age of Conan is taking place.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The last Conan story The Hour of The Dragon ends with Conan naming his ransom for Tarascus life:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Very well." The king smiled as at an exceedingly pleasant memory.</i><i>"She shall be your ransom, and naught else. I will come to Belverus</i><i>for her as I promised. She was a slave in Nemedia, but I will make her</i><i>queen of Aquilonia!"</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
- REH, The Hour of The Dragon</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So between The Hour of The Dragon ending and Age of Conan king Conan went to Belverus (capital of Nemedia), took Zenobia back with him to Aquilonia, made her queen and pretty much... "<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=give%20her%20one">gave her one</a>".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The whole dialogue gets weirder: Pallantides says that Zenobia "was a Seraglio girl".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Seraglio is a harem. But why is it spelled with a capital letter in the middle of a sentence? Its almost like the writer thought that Seraglio was a person. REH didn't capitalize the first letter of that word and I didn't find any other sources that would do so. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"There is a girl in your seraglio named Zenobia."</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
- REH, The Hour of The Dragon</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The biggest blunder is Pallantides saying that Zenobia "caught the king's eye after helping him escape the Iron Tower" and that she is "almost the match of the perfect Countess Albiona". That is a straight lore fail on Funcoms part (I am not aware of similar lore mistake in the whole game).</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
No one helped Conan escape the Iron Tower, in fact it was Conan who broke into Iron Tower to free Countess Albiona.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"In an instant Conan had drawn the massive bolt that barred the door--</i><i>too heavy for one ordinary man to have manipulated--and called hastily</i><i>to Albiona, who ran staggering to him. Catching her up unceremoniously</i><i>with one arm, he bore her through the door and into the outer</i><i>darkness.</i><i><br /></i><i>They had come into a narrow alley, black as pitch, walled by the side</i><i>of the Tower on one hand, and the sheer stone back of a row of</i><i>buildings on the other. Conan, hurrying through the darkness as</i><i>swiftly as he dared, felt the latter wall for doors or windows, but</i><i>found none"</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
- REH, The Hour of The Dragon</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But Zenobia indeed helped Conan to escape when he was a prisoner in a dungeon in a Belverus.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Who are you?" demanded the king belligerently, struggling to a</i><i>sitting position in spite of his chains.</i><i><br /></i><i>"Men call me Xaltotun," was the reply, in a strong, golden voice.</i><i><br /></i><i>"What place is this?" the Cimmerian next demanded.</i><i><br /></i><i>"A chamber in the palace of King Tarascus, in Belverus."</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: right;">
- REH, The Hour of The Dragon</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"It is no mockery!" The girl was trembling violently. Her bracelets</i><i>and breast-plates clinked against the bars she grasped. "I swear by</i><i>Mitra! I stole the keys from the black jailers. They are the keepers</i><i>of the pits, and each bears a key which will open only one set of</i><i>locks. I made them drunk. The one whose head you broke was carried</i><i>away to a leech, and I could not get his key. But the others I stole.</i><i>Oh, please do not loiter! Beyond these dungeons lie the pits which are</i><i>the doors to Hell."</i><i><br /></i><i>Somewhat impressed, Conan tried the keys dubiously, expecting to meet</i><i>only failure and a burst of mocking laughter. But he was galvanized to</i><i>discover that one, indeed, loosed him of his shackles, fitting not</i><i>only the lock that held them to the ring, but the locks on his limbs</i><i>as well. A few seconds later he stood upright, exulting fiercely in</i><i>his comparative freedom. A quick stride carried him to the grille, and</i><i>his fingers closed about a bar and the slender wrist that was pressed</i><i>against it, imprisoning the owner, who lifted her face bravely to his</i><i>fierce gaze.</i><i><br /></i><i>"Who are you, girl?" he demanded. "Why do you do this?"</i><i><br /></i><i>"I am only Zenobia," she murmured, with a catch of breathlessness, as</i><i>if in fright; "only a girl of the king's seraglio."</i></blockquote>
<pre style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; white-space: normal;">- REH, The Hour of The Dragon</span></pre>
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<pre style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; white-space: normal;">I have always wondered if Conan's and </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="white-space: normal;">Pallantides dialogues were parts of some old plot for future content so I asked former Game Director Joel Bylos about it:</span></span></pre>
<pre style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="white-space: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="white-space: normal;">You can check <a href="https://twitter.com/joelbylos/status/307145453647052800">whole conversation here</a>. Of course Joel is super knowledgeable about REH and his writings so me catching him on getting something wrong would be as rare as Funcom writers getting the lore mixed up. Which, in case of Zenobia, seems like there is an ongoing curse. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="white-space: normal;">So my dear Zenobia, you have been pregnant for a like 7 years now? Either have the baby or don't, make up your mind sweetie. </span></span></div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-82987936621512722582015-04-14T07:53:00.002-07:002015-04-14T07:53:49.102-07:00AOC Server population<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQsBeCBKNExuvZah63SoJzqaQKB8HBEGD21cHOUUTgipI80-L5D9ZzToChUFjjcGDUrLSAC1so1CjGVUpgqyDCWH1ZjegyGSe23hDS42XRw_Ptz8n2_T2khXb7xeO3e9h0n6YCtXwqTWy/s1600/da3f09b7-9e0a-4110-b89c-181475ff71ea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQsBeCBKNExuvZah63SoJzqaQKB8HBEGD21cHOUUTgipI80-L5D9ZzToChUFjjcGDUrLSAC1so1CjGVUpgqyDCWH1ZjegyGSe23hDS42XRw_Ptz8n2_T2khXb7xeO3e9h0n6YCtXwqTWy/s1600/da3f09b7-9e0a-4110-b89c-181475ff71ea.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
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I am not here to prophesize end of AOC as we know it (people have been doing that since 2008), but it is hard not to notice a major shift in population. Again, I am not claiming that AOC is "bleeding players" (far from it, if anything recent updates brought more players back), but Crom has became black hole server that is sucking in players from Fury and Rage (that second one is pretty much a non-server already). Why is this happening? Well population > all. People will sacrifice personal preferences in order to get on populated server because at the end of day AOCs is a MMO and this type of beast thrives on player-to-player interaction. Fury still has some people because there is a pay wall between this server and Crom (aka paid transfers) and Rage players can't transfer at all. What would happen if you just let people transfer between servers for free? I don't have to do the guess work because I have witnessed it in Wildstar which was launched last yet. Interestingly Wildstar team made every single mistake possible, pretty much retracting the steps that Funcom took with AOC launch. Examples? Wildstar launched with gross abundance of servers and then had to merge them all into mega-servers giving EU and US players one PVE and one PVP server. Now the interesting part: Carbine (team that developed Wildstar) made up this dumb rule that PVE players can't transfer to PVP server, but PVP players can transfer to PVE (the reason for that was, get this, "it is harder to lvl up on PVP server").</div>
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Here is where shit went wrong: since PVE server had better population to begin with some pvpers decided to move to PVE server and that created snowball effect of pvpers transferring en mass.</div>
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After few days PVE server became the only server and PVP server is left as place for odd balls and angry loners (I am both those things). You can check the PVP server boards <a href="https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/forum/295-luminai-pvp/">here </a>and <a href="https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/forum/293-warhound-pvp/">here </a>to get the full story. </div>
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Same thing is happening to AOC and the only factor that is preventing that from fully unfolding is above mentioned transfer fee. This is, of course, nothing new, but the all time low in population resulted <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?191620-end-of-fury-end-game-raiding">in end of T4 and beyond raiding </a> with many last of dedicated raiders leaving for Crom. With geared and experienced players leaving the server it is pretty much impossible to recover from that: there won't be people capable of raiding nor players experienced enough to lead them. If T4 can't be farmed on regular basis then no guild or group of players on Fury can even dream of attempting T5.</div>
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In this state T6 raid (Palace of Cetriss) and crafting revamp (which seem like will be PVE focused) will be proverbial nail in Fury coffin. </div>
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With PVE activity dieing down on Fury the state of PVP is far from declining. If anything minigames are poping all day and all night. But then again if miniagames are your thing Crom can offer same content and probably even more minigames on hourly basis. </div>
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With the addition of Arenas (instanced PVP) Crom players will again take advantage of superior population while on Fury people will be forced to play against same, small numer of teams. </div>
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And how will Funcom react to this? I doubt it will be even noticed. Server mergers/folding are bad press for any MMO and seeing how Rage is still kept around the bar for "population deemed acceptable in order to keep the server running" is set very loooooooooooooow, So hold on tight Fury, your population is due for some spring cleaning, Crom has a broom and knows how to use it. </div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-57971439044369657422015-03-12T01:10:00.003-07:002015-03-12T01:10:25.421-07:00Joel is no longer master of it all!<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It seems like yesterday when someone from Funcom dropped a hot tip in the comments saying "<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/02/sliths-cheesy-exploration-guide-ep-11.html">Everything is true, Joel is "the master of all" now.</a>."</div>
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Soon previous <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/02/new-director-for-age-of-conan.html">GD stepped down and Craig Morrison left the company</a>. </div>
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Now, almost 2 years later Joel Bylos drops unexpected news on us in <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_march_2015">latest AOC dev letter.</a></div>
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Game Director gave us some hints about him stepping down from his current position:</div>
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<i>I'll chip in a bit.<br />I haven't died guys, and I haven't left Funcom.<br />I've been asked to work on something that is super exciting and totally not something I am allowed to talk about, and the time commitment means that I can't keep up my duties on TSW and AoC (AO I have been mostly advisory for a while anyway).<br />But I am still right here. The entire roadmap we went over in the US is based on my planned outline for the game going forward (yes I still have plans through Issue #24 or so). I'm a message/call away for Tilty and Scriv and work aside, we're pretty good mates so I will be talking to them regardless. I'll also be playing the content and sending my feedback to the team.<br />I just can't keep up with the day-to-days of TSW and AoC while doing this other thing - it's more work than one person can do. TSW has been going from strength to strength lately - all of the live games have - and my moving off is actually more of a consequence of that success.<br />And while they need to change my forum tag to a retired tag, I am still going to pop in and post. They can't stop me (actually they can, but please don't Tomium)</i></blockquote>
See <a href="https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?84363-March-GD-Letter-Discussion&s=67f8e16d3199459d20b68f030e8c0524&p=1840031&viewfull=1#post1840031">the source</a>.<br />
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This reads like either "Funcom has a new project and JB is going to handle it" or "Lego MMO is tanking and I am supposed to save it and sound excited at the same time". I find JayBe to be very genuine so I am assuming that indeed Funcom has something new going for them and Joel is the right man for the job. I think a lot will be revealed in FC's Q1 report which is due soon.<br />
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Joel Bylos had 2 years to tackle AOC and here is how I would grade his performance:<br />
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8 out of 10</div>
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Right off the bat: Joel didn't have a huge team or budget. It is hard to do extraordinary things without extraordinary money. It is just that simple. If I had to point to strongest points of his regin as Game Director it would be this:</div>
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<b>Improving existing content, quality control, bug fixes</b></div>
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I always hated how old content in AOC, even when obviously messed up, was left there to rot (I am looking at you Bori!). Joel had a clear vision of refining existing stuff and a clear example of this are World Bosses. This content was already popular, but Joel and the team tinkered with it some more and made it great. Obvious bugs and flaws were very quickly adressed (like guards and criminal debuffs in Pvp daily zones) and bad systems are due for a revamp (like a notification system which is badly needed for things like PvP events).</div>
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<b>Being ready to back down from previous decision</b></div>
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Joel displayed many times that he can drop some idea on the community, listen to the feedback and then decide to change his stance. Unchained PvP Revamps and The Great Hyborian Race are good examples of that. Both were a horrible ideas and when asked about them Joel was ready to admit that it might not be best content to throw money at. Same goes for pvp systems: at first Joel said NO to even simple pvp weapons stats changes and then gave as a full blown pvp items revamp.</div>
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<b>Nailing it </b></div>
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With his limited time and resources Joel made few good decisions that paid off immensely: achievements, loot Progression in Tier 5 raids and T5 unchained raid. Not many truly believed in achievements to have any meaningful impact on AOC and yet here we are with boards full of achievements related posts and Tortage filled with new and returning players. New raid, while totally a re-used content, was badly needed to keep the raiding hordes of Crom in the game while waiting for T6 Palace update.Changes to the T5 itemization where great for two reasons: those open new possibilities for the future loot updates (legendary cloak is a good example of that) and it terms of power it has little effect on PvPers. </div>
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So why 8 out of 10?<br />
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Joel Bylos, unlike many AOC forum posters, is not perfect. I have few grudges:<br />
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<b>Not adressing group pvp issues</b><br />
While the team did a lot of the pvpers the main woe remains: pvp minigames are still "solo" pvp content that you play with random strangers over and over again. Pvp streak system seemed like a perfect opportunity to bring back Tournament mode and <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_may_2014">it was even mentioned in directors letter</a>. For some reason the team backed down from this design and never really mentioned it again. The added new pvp stat that counts minigames left is a pille of mess that counts the amount of bugs players <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaSo5JMrPj4">encountered rather than actually games they abandoned. </a> In Joels defence I have to mention that he did change his stance on PvP Arenas, but we don't know how that is going to turn out.<br />
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<b>Cash shop taken to the extreme</b><br />
The cash shop updates for AOC were horrible money grabs. Don't get me wrong, the game needs money and I am providing it for years now, but it just screams bad design when certain items are real cash only. Everything should be available through content event is reserved only for premium players. Prime examples are chests that expand your inventory. Why can't we get the from just playing the game? It is "pay us not to get screwed overy by obviously flawed inventory system" type of message.<br />
Indemnity consumables are even more atrocious: it is an item that you consume in order to prevent your pvp streak quest from failing when you lose a minigame. Ideminty protects the player not only from more skilled opponents but also from AOC bugs (like server kick, being CCed under the map, joining minigame with cowards shame debuff) which are there, ready to mess up your streak.The problem is that indemnity is a cash shop exclusive and it is another example of "pay us not to get screwed over by both the bugs and random people we are forcing you to play with".<br />
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<b>Lore fail</b><br />
I simply can't stomach lore behind the pvp events. The very idea of picts just chilling in major cities all over Hyboria gives me a nerd rage debuff.<br />
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The story is bogus and it doesnt make any sense (and BTW the story in a nut shell is: "we are doing the events so we get to hang out where we want, but don't worry, we are kinda good picts").</div>
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Anyone that have read the original REH Conan stories will know that it's against the lore.</div>
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It was Arus, a priest of Mitra, that brought Picts into contact with Aquilonia.</div>
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<i>"Picts now came and went freely into Aquilonia, under safe-conduct, and<br />they returned with more information as to armor-forging and sword-<br />making. More, they entered Aquilonia's mercenary armies"</i> </blockquote>
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<i>- REH, The Hyborian Age</i></blockquote>
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The only problem is that happened for the first time about 500 years after the events shown in Age of Conan.The story in the pvp event is poorly written. It is actually the first time I have seen AOC treat cannon lore badly.</div>
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So there you have it folks! Joel Bylos, overall, did very well and I am sure he is the right man for whatever new project Funcom is cooking up. </div>
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<br />Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-1495586572595163632015-02-08T03:27:00.000-08:002015-02-08T03:31:26.937-08:00Achievment unlocked!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju6szdaKrkyHXryzOzSq3dVZRRmH3-KFr5cgrVuhO94NTfpDt_OBqn_M3OzfzUisGcYBwm-VvqHkwc9SMsCLNAxL14f6doPNqd_a7cHlp5vWLI1aRufsNnOHbtp0dpv1ASdcflv7nilAe4/s1600/10968428_715211035243874_407336719596887952_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju6szdaKrkyHXryzOzSq3dVZRRmH3-KFr5cgrVuhO94NTfpDt_OBqn_M3OzfzUisGcYBwm-VvqHkwc9SMsCLNAxL14f6doPNqd_a7cHlp5vWLI1aRufsNnOHbtp0dpv1ASdcflv7nilAe4/s1600/10968428_715211035243874_407336719596887952_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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Achievements are in the Age of Conan as of now and I am all in. As always I want to give you my personal take on it and I want to make that clear because achievements mean veeeeeeeeery different things for different players. More so even if I am pumped for achieves in AOC I couldn't care less about them in other MMOs.</div>
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Why?</div>
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I am at "mastery phase" in AOC and very much at "you suck noob phase" in other MMOs (which I don't play, just dabble with from time to time).</div>
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I don't think achievements are content per se. If someone left AOC because of lack of content this update is not substantial enough to give them a solid reason to re-sub. For people like me, AOC veterans, achievements is a perfect desert. For new players achievements are a side-dish. For people in between? I am a bit lost in my food analogies so I will just say that it might not be for them. </div>
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I am very much<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/10/no-progresion-hurts-aoc.html"> stuck in a same place</a> for far too long now. Are achievements addressing that? No. Achievements are a neat distraction, they provide just that little bit of gratification necessary for me to actually enjoy re-running 7 year old Villa content (which I haven't done since... patch 1.6?). I had like a 10 minutes this morning so I fired up AOC and completed some old old Tortage quest for achievement. I got the kick out of reading lore bits (Pool of the Black ones implementation in AOC is jaw dropping), I got achievement and loged off. I enjoyed it.You could argue that I could have gone back to Tortage questing any time I wanted and that it provides ZERO challenge and that is true, but I guess achievements is that special sauce that makes everything taste better. That or it might be pure EGO thing. Whatever rocks your boat, achievements work for me.<br />
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I don't want to give achievements too much credit or make it sound like FC all of sudden re-invented the wheel and turned MMO industry upside down. Not by a long shot, but when to comes down to clost-to-fun ratio I will say that I was a good idea to dedicate resources to achievement system. There are some hick-ups like awarding certain achievements retroactively to seasoned players (I prefer hick-ups over "screw you guys, want all achievements? Reroll!"), but overall I think its well made. The UI looks a bit out of place but then again most of UI elements were developed pre 2008 and quite honestly no post 2008 update that added new UI elements was able to fit them perefctly into existing interface. The UI is clean and usable which is all I need. If I had to complain about something it would be....rewards. The rewards are mostly titles and teleports. I care little about titles and AOC already had WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many teleports. I was hoping for more social items like hair styles, tatoos, vanity armor - the works. I suppose it is the first iteration of achievement system so maybe the experience in the future be more ....rewarding. </div>
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I am glad that <a href="http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?59996-Achievements-General&p=601227&viewfull=1#post601227">my feedback regarding kill count in pvp</a> got noticed, because at first top tier pvp kill achievement was ....5 000. Now it's 50.000 so if you are boasting "The Slaughterer" title like I do you really earned that. </div>
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On a personal note I am trying not to get overwhelmed by the system and picked stuff that I want to do first. Going back to old zones to finish quests from 2008 and beyond gives me that nostalgic feel which I personally enjoy so I have decided to tackle zone mastery first. I was surprised to find how quests I have finished in each zone because back in 2008 I rushed to lvl 80 like there was no tomorrow. Good times.<br />
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The achievement system overall rewards my type of gaming which is focusing on one character. Since I don't care about account wide achievements I will get most of them eventually (saved for gems like "get all classes to pvp lvl 4", I ain't doing it). For those that have a lot of alts and on different servers there are two bad news: most achievements are NOT account wide and "account wide" does not mean "cross-server". Luckly that second issue is being addressed soon enough.</div>
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<img alt="Quote" src="http://forums.ageofconan.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; position: relative; top: 1px;" title="Quote" /> Originally Posted by <strong style="font-style: inherit;">Norther</strong> <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=2120797#post2120797" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5a503e;"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="http://forums.ageofconan.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; position: relative; top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="View Post" /></a></div>
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Account wide achievements are not account wide, but server wide. Any plans for fixing that?</div>
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yes,<br />
but as the achievement data is completely separated between servers it is not as easy as gaining the account wide achievement and then having it passed across immediately to the other server(s). The solution we have to go with is for these achievements to be credited across the servers during the weekly server restart. So you should first start seeing these being credited between servers after the downtime next week.<br />
This of course only applies to 'account wide' achievements and the only scenario where this isn't instant is when it goes cross-server.</blockquote>
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<br />
Last thing that I hope Funcom will address are bugs related to not being able to finish old quests (<a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?191186-Achievement-System-Feedback-thread">tons of feedback here</a>). Nothing takes winds of out my sails than not being able to finish zone mastery achievement just because some Tortage quest is not finishable after beating the main story line.<br />
Overall If I had to grade Funcom in this feature I would give it a solid 8/10. The foundation is there but the system as a whole still needs some kinks being ironed out. </div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-57605652888602187862015-01-01T14:34:00.000-08:002015-01-01T21:14:29.216-08:00[Guide] Soul Shards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGXzDPMcAIf9UldK1hVXLCnjUBCewPZArP2jOC75k_ahLRP11AiPmI2Y3q0yVJsz6DrXRZoPkTom2rdbDQTuaOy1Us-P4vk2_D2IzF6nGLQb_RjZG4BPTiglkIUX9_5rAICgZez9YvI91j/s1600/Soul+Shards.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGXzDPMcAIf9UldK1hVXLCnjUBCewPZArP2jOC75k_ahLRP11AiPmI2Y3q0yVJsz6DrXRZoPkTom2rdbDQTuaOy1Us-P4vk2_D2IzF6nGLQb_RjZG4BPTiglkIUX9_5rAICgZez9YvI91j/s1600/Soul+Shards.png" height="292" width="320" /></a></div>
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Since my pre 1.5 soul shard guide is <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/06/guide-soul-shards.html">out of date</a> I have decided to re-do it and talk a bit about basics of soul shard management.</div>
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Soul Shards are located near your health bar and you can have no more than 5 of them at any given time. The Soul Fragment system has been changed as part of the Assassin changes in patch 1.6 and Assassins will regenerate Soul Fragments at a rate of 1 every 8 seconds.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtfUOWiiq3tKu90NqJHkVM6HRt2timBf8GbypTQFLvoTsouFOJfaPSN9Kl3JgCZCqcFJYKnRr9uWCt4-K6rvuftLx-FSuLgGRm6zS-ylNZqjVoz6SBr6WoqG2OQ3cw9vBPakTu4ES-lK4/s1600/soul.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtfUOWiiq3tKu90NqJHkVM6HRt2timBf8GbypTQFLvoTsouFOJfaPSN9Kl3JgCZCqcFJYKnRr9uWCt4-K6rvuftLx-FSuLgGRm6zS-ylNZqjVoz6SBr6WoqG2OQ3cw9vBPakTu4ES-lK4/s1600/soul.png" height="162" width="320" /></a></div>
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Every skill that uses soul shards in any way have information about in it's description.</div>
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There are 5 different mechanics related to soul shards management and those are:</div>
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<li>spenders</li>
<li>consumers</li>
<li>generators</li>
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<div>
Spenders are those skills that won't work at all without required amount of soul shards available. Miasmas (face stab, lotus dart, soul strike) need as little as 1 shard, but CCs need 2, Lotus Pollen as much as 3 and Avatar/Lotus Overdose a whooping 4. Most of assassins skills are spenders so if you find yourself out of shards your options might be very limited even if none of your skills are on cool down.</div>
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Consumers are those skills that will only use up soul shards if those are present. Snap Kick for example will consume shard if you have one, but there are no benefits to using kick with a shard. On the other hand Death Whirlwind/grave blossom will use all soul shards that you have, but the more they can consume the harder those combos will hit.</div>
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Lastly there are generators. Crystallized Lotus Extract will grant you instant 3 soul shards while Necrotic Empowerment will give you 4, but over the period of 16 seconds. Castration perk (gained via Alternative Advancement) will grant you 2 soul shards on successful combo hit. Lastly soul corruption will speed up your passive soul shard generation, but in it's current form it is not worth any investment.</div>
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Q&A:</div>
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<b>Are there any benefit to spending/not spending your soul shards?</b></div>
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None. Soul shards don't provide any bonuses on their own. Think of then as currency that you use to "pay" to be able to use your stuff like CC. Anything close to soul shard related bonus are damage buffs to DWW/GB based on the amount of shards.</div>
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<b>Why do assassins "pay" with soul shards for things that other classes have for free? (Fear/Stun).</b></div>
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Back in 1.6 CC worked differently: those were instant and you could effectively "stun lock" your target by chaining CCs together. Soul Shards were a system designed to limit assassins power.</div>
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<b>How many generators do I need?</b></div>
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My stance on generators is that you need both Crystallized Lotus Extract and Necrotic Empowerment to be effective in both PVE and PVP</div>
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<b>Should I spend my soul shards or conserve them?</b></div>
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It is very situational but my rule of thumb is spend, spend, spend and use Crystallized Lotus Extract and Necrotic Empowerment whenever the cool down has ended.</div>
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<br />Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-90361047307196084802014-12-28T04:02:00.001-08:002014-12-28T04:02:59.842-08:001 year in review - 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yet another Hyborian year has passed and it is time for my savage review. When you look <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-taste-of-things-to-come.html">at the list of things that were promised</a> in 2013/2014 it will be pretty obvious that most of the stuff did not get delivered. On another hand new gear mechanics had to be introduced to add any new meaningful content to AOC. Lets see what was going on in Hyboria during those 12 months.</div>
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<b>COMMUNITY MANAGMENT</b></div>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">All Your Tomium Are Belong To Us</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">[Forum Event] Epic Tales of Uncertainty - a forum game</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Halloween Streaming!</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Adventurers vs Kang - Hardmode! - youtube re-post</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Player Spotlight Rishis</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Forum re-design</li>
</ol>
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I often give community managers a hard time because I feel like so so very little has been done over the years to really help AOC and it's community.<a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?188944-All-Your-Tomium-Are-Belong-To-Us&p=2104622&viewfull=1#post2104622"> I spilled my beans on that subject here</a>. With an addition of <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?188944-All-Your-Tomium-Are-Belong-To-Us">new community manager</a> I didn't expect for things to change drastically, but I gave the benefit of doubt. Without being an asshole about it the above list is what pretty much has been done for the community over 12 months. Epic Tales <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?190853-Forum-Event-Epic-Tales-of-Uncertainty-3-0-Part-3!">ended on a less than epic note</a>. Halloween Streaming was two community managers giggling on Twitch and dieing on their low level characters. It was painful to watch as it was pretty obvious that community managers had little to no idea how to play the game. If someone expected insights about AOC, Q&A session with a dev or learning anything about the game then it was a big let down. I don't mind that "shits and giggles" approach to streaming once in a while IF it is a break from your regular streaming that has both purpose and content to offer. If just laughing your ass off for 2 hours on Twitch is the only thing you are going to do over 12 months then why even bother. We also had one youtube video re-post and one player spotlight. What was that about? Why even bother to do something once and then abandon it completely? I am not going to talk about forum re-design. I will just mention that old design was the best thing I have seen when it comes to MMO boards and I am saddened to see it gone. However if it was needed for technical reasons then be it, it's not that super important. Community management, again as always, resorted to posting server status and path notes with addition of Tomium offering a wide array of snarky comments to the players (which is less than welcomed and opposite to helful).</div>
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<b>EVENTS</b></div>
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<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Age of Conan's Sixth Anniversary!</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Age of Conan Halloween</li>
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Sixth Anniversary was a bit of a let down because of poor writing. The story was rushed, uninspiring and to make it worst it was used later on for PvP events lore. <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/11/halloween-event-of-2014-just-good-no.html">Halloween even</a> was on the other hand very well put together and pretty much addressing ALL of my concerns about this type of content in AOC. Bonus points goes to Funcom for sticking with this new philosophy of adding something new to the events in every year. </div>
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<b>WORLD BOSSES</b></div>
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<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">added a buff which will give players amnesty against criminal/murder status</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The first kill of each month will now provide a new Portent Token which can be claimed on each of your characters.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Portents spawning on the PvP servers now have lower health to compensate for the increased challenges provided by these locations. </li>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
World Bosses are here to stay. While WBs are glorified, gigantic pinatas but no one can deny that it is a super popular content. The improvements to the WBs, especially addressing the problems on PvP servers (where sometimes it took more than 1 hour to take down bosss) made things a lot better.</div>
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I only wish that Funcom has went a diffrent route with WBs and instead using gigantic monsters they should have used armies and generals. Cutting through the ranks of Nemedians to kill their general would be, at least for me, a lot more epic than sticking my dagger in some fat, flying demon. This content is what it is and recent changes are appreciated.</div>
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<b>ITEMIZATION</b></div>
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<div>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Update to all PvP vendor weapons to have improved stats that should make them much more competitive in a PvP environment</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Stats have been redistributed on all tiers of PvP armor. Tier 3 PvP gear should now be of a similar standard to T4 raiding gear.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New social items have been added to the Contraption Merchants for purchase using Conquest Trophies.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New vendor offers unique new items in exchange for Victory Tokens.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New mechanic in a form of Finesse hits,</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New mechanic in a form of set bonuses</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">New mechanic in a form of item buffs</li>
</ol>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Even thou changes to existing pvp gear were deemed "very hard" by the Game Director later on we got awesome stats re-balance which resulted in closing the gap between T1 and T3 pvp gear and making T3 pvp gear more desirable for pvp than T4 pve gear. Great change! I did't enjoy pets this year. Pets, pets, pets, everything gives you pet reward. New pvp currency in a form of victory tokes can be spent pretty much on more pets. At very least with the <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_november_2014">planned addition of solo arena</a> all those pets are making sense now. The single most important addition to AOC this year were new gear mechanics which were needed for AOC to expand and provide future content. Developers have coded themselves into trap post 1.5 because with no stats cap item budgets could only gone up resulting in T4 gear making pretty much everything painfully obsolete. New mechanics are great for adding new items that are not simply a flat power upgrade and also set bonuses encourage mixing and matching between set pieces. Bonus points goes to Funcom for making finess hits a PVE exclusive and thus avoiding the age old issue of PVE gear being more valid for pvp. Check out <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/10/t5-loot-update-44-and-new-era-for-aoc.html">more info on new mechanics here</a>.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>RAIDS</b></div>
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</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">changes to memory cloud, loot has been redistributed over to The Zodiac & Emperor Yah Chieng</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">changes to Temple of Erlic T3.5 raid. At least 1 of the new weapon and accessory items are guaranteed to drop from each boss.Some bosses drop Dragon's Tears, rares, minipets or Phials of Heavenly Knowledge.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">All existing raid vendors now offer weapons and accessories for sale in exchange for their respective tokens.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">All existing raid vendors now offer weapons and accessories for sale in exchange for their respective tokens.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new vendor offers new unique mounts, social pets, and morph abilities in exchange for tokens from Tier 1 to Tier 3. This new vendor also offers an exchange for Simple Relic Is > Simple Relic IIs and Simple Relic IIs > Simple Relic IIIs.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">T5 unchained raids.</li>
</ol>
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I am not much of a raider so I can offer a little insight about raid related changes. T5 raids are developers buying themselves more time in order to pump out T6. Adding T5 was a smart move because it was painfully obvious that T4 raid was .... raided to death (sorry for this bad pun) and PVE players were ready to move on (to another game most likely). T5 raid uses old bosses and raid zones but has new mechanics. I would call it a blatant attempt at stopping PVE population from leaving if it wasn't for the addition of gear with new mechanics.</div>
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<b>PVP</b></div>
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<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The contraption merchants now offer an exchange of Campaign Badges into Conquest Trophies.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">PvP Festival events</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Daily PvP Questing System</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">White Sands Isle is now PvP Enabled on all PvP servers</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">PvP Minigame streak system</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A new item, "Indemnity", has been added to act as insurance against a minigame loss</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Individual minigame statistics are now visible on the player info window. New statistic added in a form of minigames abandoned count.</li>
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PVP Festival turned to be something oh-not-so-hot (<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2014/06/pvp-events-not-so-hot.html">check my article here</a>). Most of the veteran pvpers ignore daily quests and pvp festival as they have nothing to gain there and what is left are mostly alt farmers that are making the events into Bori 2.0. The event and daily pvp zones lack of proper UI solutions (on screen messages and whispers are lackluster and remind me of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD">MUD games</a>) and it's not even clear where the even/daily quest is taking place, players must go from zone to zone and discover it for themselves (hint: most don't even bother).</div>
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But events are what they are: cheap content delivered very fast and I cannot argue with the cost-to-quality ratio because, in all honesty, it still beats Bori by far. </div>
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What I am very upset about are Minigame streak system and minigames abandoned count. Game Director promised that Minigame streak would be also made for tournament mode so to encourage group play in AOC. He didn't deliver on that promise. Furthermore minigame streak quest can be broken/failed not only by losing the game but also via abundance of bugs like server kick, or getting CCed under map. What is Funcom solution to that? New item called Indemnity which pretty much acts as insurance against losing. So what it bad about it? Its cash-shop exclusive item and that is just evil. It's Funcom saying: pay us not to get fucked over by AOC bugs. This item should be buyable with tokens and the fact that it is not is a blatant money grab executed in a worst possible manner. To add insult to injury minigame abandoned count, a new type of visible stat, doesn't really count minigames left but rather the amount of bugs. I for exemple didn't leave a single game and I can boast an amazing 13 minigames left. You can check a <a href="http://youtu.be/eaSo5JMrPj4">video of me getting 2 minigames abandoned in one game</a> (while staying in it!) and see the <a href="http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?59977-Minigames-abandoned-score-bug">bug report thread</a>. If I had to sum up pvp content for the year 2014 I would say: most noble of the intentions, most poor execution.</div>
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<b>FIXES AND CHANGES</b></div>
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<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Requirements for gaining offline levels have been adjusted. In addition to premium account status, players must now possess a level 70 character before offline levels can be earned on the game account.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The active PvP Daily location now provides all players with a buff which will block criminal/murder status.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Guards will no longer come to player's aid during the Pictish Festival of Bloodshed (daily or festival week) in the festival location.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Players below level 80 will receive PvE XP boosts in the festival location.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">It is now possible to signup for minigames from the Border Kingdoms : Cimmerian End, Border Kingdoms : Aquilonian End and the Border to Kush.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">An Auto Loot feature has been added</li>
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I really liked how the devs quickly responded to obvious problems. In previous years it took months for anything to get fixed and now a lot of stuff got hot fixed within a week or so. An auto loot feature is amazing addition to the game.</div>
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<b>CLASS BALANCE</b></div>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">changes and fixes to a lot of classes</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">alternative advancement changes</li>
</ol>
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Changes to the classes were very welcomed as it's been years since even most simple tweak. I especially like how Conqs got finally toned down a bit. Alternative advancement changes were a nice try, but as long as the game rewards stacting +crit everyone will use same set of AAs.</div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-72447093907999202292014-12-07T12:48:00.001-08:002014-12-07T12:48:57.979-08:00My horse is amazing!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1YrzwBscJFvPoLLYDzMcrEP6vMMFtWGhvV1VLJC0QWcHjF3D4sSkbSWlryl5fpie8dBNyv2gRKzz7OnM3MSXvjNY5eowoAfobcj75ftGJj8uxGwTT8qjO0vdxhXerlt9-wCTREQj1JsT3/s1600/ba1daa69-5dc5-413f-8927-2118f0561f8d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1YrzwBscJFvPoLLYDzMcrEP6vMMFtWGhvV1VLJC0QWcHjF3D4sSkbSWlryl5fpie8dBNyv2gRKzz7OnM3MSXvjNY5eowoAfobcj75ftGJj8uxGwTT8qjO0vdxhXerlt9-wCTREQj1JsT3/s1600/ba1daa69-5dc5-413f-8927-2118f0561f8d.jpg" height="229" width="320" /></a></div>
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I have made this post so you can look at my horse and decide for yourself that....<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe4fyhzS3UM">my horse is amazing</a>. It happens that I have recently received two rather sweet mounts.</div>
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One is Strategists Steed offered via Kickstarter campaign for...Age of Conan Board Game (more info <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/check_out_the_upcoming_age_of_conan_board_game_expansion">here</a>). I was looking to buy that board game for some time and KickStarter offer loaded with extra stuff made it only a sweeter deal. Strategist Steed is a code which you apply to your account and then you receive the mount via /claim command. The Mount is account wide with unlimited claims and it a bit faster than swift horse (or at least as fast). The claimed mount icon is epic in color and surprisingly it has no description.</div>
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Tarpani Stalion is a different beast. I wrote about this <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2012/02/lore-whore-magical-mounts.html">mount in this post </a>calling in an undead magic mount. Well you get this mount via quest chain which can be started when your guild gets to the 20 lvl renown. After pretty nice story you have to force an NPC to talk and he won't spill the beans unless you pay up .... 200 gold pieces. After you have stuffed NPC's face with golds he reveals that the horse is only "conditioned" via horrible means to be much stronger than other horses. That "conditioning" also makes it look undead which is... a plus in my book. This mount seems as fast as Hyrkanian horse, but then again I didn't test it and I don't know shit about shit (unlike Cynara who posted <a href="https://cynarablog.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/comparison-of-mounts/">pretty definitive guide on mount speeds</a>). The added benefit of this mount is +590 protection buff that you will get when mounted (might come handy during sieges or so).</div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-32178226321055098622014-11-26T01:45:00.002-08:002014-11-26T01:45:47.472-08:00Blast from the past ep.1 - Dat AI!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I really like going through old 2005-2008 posts and articles and uncovering what the game was supposed to be and comparing it to how it turned out. Nostalgia is my drug of choice.</div>
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To my surprise a lot of most innovative AOC elements never made it to the live game and those strong points were made it into AOC's weak points.</div>
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AI and scripting was supposed to be most impressive, ground breaking part of AOC.</div>
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Just look at it:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>We have made this neat AI not to create something we think will revolutionize gaming, making the world "real". I think all such claims are Utopian. We have done this to be able to let the NPCs be a little bit more intelligent than just "quest vendors" or "battle-monkeys" or whatever you will call the behavior of monsters / NPCs in todays MMOs. The NPC’s will approach a player and try to sell stuff, talk to him or interact if appropriate. The NPC’s will have loyalty to their leaders, and various degrees of social abilities.</i><i><br /></i><i>It is important to note, though, that combat AI is quite a bit more linear. This is because for battles it is most likely more fun to interact with a predictable enemy than someone that seems "random".</i><i><br /></i><i>ShackNews, 16th June 2006 (Gaute Godager)</i></blockquote>
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It's 2014 and I can't really think of MMO that really pulled that kind of stunt off (or even attempted it). Quest NPC and MOBS pretty much behave the way they used to since ....well since ever I suppose? NPCs just hang out with exclamation marks above their quests and pretty much all you can do in terms of interaction is pick up the quests while reading some dialog (your choices are meaningless). Funcom briefly experimented with "dialog options have consequences" with the launch of ROGS where you could actually offend the NPC and lose that little bit of reputation. That concept was never taken further and is pretty much gone.</div>
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<i>One example would be in a village where you will see different behavior based upon the time of the day and also the needs of the person you are encountering. And you'll also see the A.I. working with group behavior. If you are out in the countryside and one wolf is coming along you will probably be spared. But if there's a whole pack of wolf you might be attacked because they will have different behaviors depending on how many there are and also how many players you are with. Hopefully it won't be 100% for real because this is a game. It has to be a parameter of fun. So what is fun and what works will be kept. The player of online rpgs often like to have some hunting grounds, some regions which will be good for that as well. I guess the essence is that it should be to some degree unpredictable, it should be varied, and that is what we are trying to achieve. More than anything it should be fun though!</i><i><br /></i><i>conan.mmorpgs.info, 2nd April 2006 (Jørgen Tharaldsen)</i></blockquote>
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You can still notice that little bit of AI in animals in Potain (cows will run away when approached). This concept was again brought back in ROGS where some animals are displaying a bit different scripting (like wolf when attacked will call out the rest of his pack to join the fight, water buffalo will protect the calfs and so on). I guess it was supposed to be so much more than that.</div>
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<i>With the need based system we are working on now, we can give all NPC's their own mind.. meaning they will be hungry, thirsty, sleepy etc and act accordingly to their emotions and needs. Some NPC's will avoid conflict, others will warn you not to come closer while others again will attack on sight. We are trying to make this as good looking as possible rather than having static NPC's who are just looking at you until you get close enough to fight.</i><i><br /></i><i>Forums, 14th October 2005 (Mjoellnir)</i></blockquote>
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Unfortunately AOC launched with just three possible "statuses" that NPC can be in: green and not attackable (quest NPCs), yellow-neutral and attackable and red/gray that are hostile and attackable. It is pretty much a standard behavior in all MMOs and it was super ambitious for Funcom to even attempt doing things diffrently. This kind of player-to-NPC interaction is usually reserved for huge, offline RPGs like Skyrim and even those major titles have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P_5U9WlC0E">abundance of game breaking bugs</a>. The potential for AI abuse was huge and I can't imagine how this system would work with dozens of players present near the same NPC.</div>
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<i>We can give every single NPC, dynel, item, puzzle, trap, quest and even playfield its own AI script, and this script can be very simple or very complex. That means that the entire world can be controlled with AI, something that give us the possibility to make a good, dynamic environment where nothing really is predictable unless we want it to be!</i><i><br /></i><i>If I can help it, we will not have static NPC's, other than those who are supposed to stand in a certain area. I don't want to go into more details than I have in some of the other posts, but when we design and script the behavior of animals we try to see how they act in real. A migrating system is interesting and not impossible to implement, so I'll keep it in mind.</i><i><br /></i><i>Forums, 25th August 2005 (Mjoellnir)</i></blockquote>
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AOC is extremely static game. In fact I am considering that AOC's the biggest flaw. Despite the fact that players have obviously participated in world changing events (like killing Toth-Amon) it never has a bigger impact on the world than 1-2 lines of NPC text that pads the players on the back for killing XYZ. If I had to point to the single biggest blunder I would say that it's Tarantia Noble District where, imagine this, Nemedians have laid siege lasting since 2008. Nemedians are displaying some of the "trench warfare" tactics to say the least. I would love for Nemedian invasion to be a random event that just happens, you know, like invasions usually do?</div>
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The idea of dynamic evens was re-visited during path 1.5 with the launch of Tarantia commons. The zone is supposed to have dynamic evens with riots and players being able to control the outcome of the struggle between peacekeepers and rioters. I have always considered that content to be no more than a gimmick and few players ever have bothered with it (it was mostly made to spawn bosses that drop rare recipes). Again in ROGS there is a little more of dynamic elements like ritual in The Temple of Yun in Paikang (the ritual starts at 12:00 server time and player must participate in the dance to earn quest reward). However recent additions to AOC in a form of World Bosses and PvP Festivals are definitely step into right direction since those are dynamic, with limited spawn time and repeatable. </div>
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If Funcom could pull of the AI system it would be revolutionary even now and I cannot imagine how that promise must have pumped people up back in 2005. I wish more of that old systems/concepts were present in the game today, but I can also see how that system could be easily abused and needlessly complicated. </div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-28825020060970355982014-11-09T04:43:00.001-08:002014-11-09T04:45:29.940-08:0060.000 kills episode spectacular - no to solo arena!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW495i4dBT30YMYdZPE8bk6q4ISWamMWroPvvG8SHdNuqHWKBtFEA_GADFtemlWBzA30-zljqdXFSwfegDiuivcyeR1dOEkjYtrrO3hKrB8yY5vEIQRkB9i6fddAlPEsUsnkTFDTyynVeQ/s1600/B05j9wmIUAEsbbN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW495i4dBT30YMYdZPE8bk6q4ISWamMWroPvvG8SHdNuqHWKBtFEA_GADFtemlWBzA30-zljqdXFSwfegDiuivcyeR1dOEkjYtrrO3hKrB8yY5vEIQRkB9i6fddAlPEsUsnkTFDTyynVeQ/s1600/B05j9wmIUAEsbbN.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Another milestone conquered: 60.000 kills. While my ultimate goal is 65k a new challenge presented itself: PVP Arena.</div>
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What is it?</div>
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Last time I got excited about new AOC content was when Mozes was a cowboy so...back in 2012? I remember that Dragon Spine got me pumped quite a bit (oh how crappy it turned out to be..).</div>
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I was pleasantly surprised to read <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_october_2014">Game Director Letter – October 2014</a> achievements, pve and pvp arenas? Damn right! After re-reading the letter couple more times (reading comprehension fail) I noticed that....PVP arena will be a solo content. I immediately did what any sane person would: I tore off my clothes, ran through my neighborhood butt naked and screaming and then, while rocking back and forth at my desk, I got on forums and complained about it. </div>
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Game Director was very blunt about the PVP Arena:</div>
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<img alt="Quote" src="http://forums.ageofconan.com/images/misc/quote_icon.png" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; position: relative; top: 1px;" title="Quote" /> Originally Posted by <strong style="font-style: inherit;">ne-X-us</strong> <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=2115550#post2115550" rel="nofollow" style="color: #5a503e;"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="http://forums.ageofconan.com/images/buttons/viewpost-right.png" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; position: relative; top: 1px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="View Post" /></a></div>
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2Nusquam Can we expect 2x2 3x3 arena with premade?</div>
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The design I have read is for solo. Premades etc require more codework for matchmaking and greater scope. Can be considered for the future.</blockquote>
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Solo. Wow. There are two things that Funcom made me allergic to: "solo" and "bragging rights".</div>
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Sitting down to write this post I promised myself that I wouldn't cry and I wouldn't write over and over and over again how PVP needs to be enjoyed with friends and not with random strangers.</div>
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Well since I am already sobbing I can only keep my word on not explaing the importance of social aspect of pvp. Let me direct you to my other posts about friends and PVP (and how Funcom took that away from us):</div>
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<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/12/aoc-pvp-changes-are-coming.html">http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/12/aoc-pvp-changes-are-coming.html</a></div>
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<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/12/aoc-pvp-changes-are-coming-part-ii.html">http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/12/aoc-pvp-changes-are-coming-part-ii.html</a></div>
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<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2011/02/age-of-conan-pvp-fail-by-design.html">http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2011/02/age-of-conan-pvp-fail-by-design.html</a></div>
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<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2012/11/4000000-served.html">http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2012/11/4000000-served.html</a></div>
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By the way do developers even know what it is like to play with strangers in highly competitive environment? Have you guys been ON THE INTERNET?</div>
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Let me simulate the experience by copy/pasting my group chat from two games that, mind you, we have won!</div>
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[Group] [Acke]: where the fuck are u all</div>
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[Group] [Acke]: ffs</div>
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[Group] [Kryptoshaman]: get off this ledge idiot</div>
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[Group] [Kryptoshaman]: noones here</div>
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[Group] [Kryptoshaman]: lol</div>
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[Group] [Pasathor]: go flag</div>
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[Group] [Boyaka]: fucking noobs</div>
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[Group] [Crypthon]: i go flag... please a couple of guys def</div>
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[Group] [Crypthon]: nec - play</div>
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[Group] [Crypthon]: kill flag</div>
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[Group] [Onlymydemo]: cc this barb</div>
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[Group] [Onlymydemo]: wher is this all fucking team</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: my ? to</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: cretins</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: cretins</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: cretins</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: cretins</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: cretins</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: cretins</div>
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[Group] [Bomby]: NO SUPPORT NO FLAG</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: u didnt even tRy to get it</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: by</div>
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[Group] [Onlymydemo]: lol all hit fucking tank</div>
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[Group] [Onlymydemo]: what a retard team</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: y</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: y</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: bye</div>
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[Group] [Bomby]: NECRO</div>
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[Group] [Onlymydemo]: do you know what is fucking stun or fear?</div>
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[Group] [Bomby]: who do you mean?</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: bye</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: bye</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: bye</div>
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[Group] [Onlymydemo]: specaly you tard</div>
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[Group] [Napaljenica]: FUCK YOU TARDS</div>
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Can you imagine this kind of communication while playing with friends? Yes? Well then perhaps they are not your friends :X</div>
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I don't need THAT in my live and this is what AOC pug system forces me to endure. </div>
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With that put aside I can get right to the point why Solo Arena is a bad idea.</div>
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Back in the day along with Renown system we got arenas that are located in Khemi and (I think) in Keshatta too. Everyone got excited about those arenas until we learned that there is almost zero difference between dueling in arena and dueling in the open world. If anything the system was more cumbersome that just pvping out in the open. </div>
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Lets see what the new arena is all about:</div>
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<i>In the PvP version, you approach a different NPC, where you can queue for a PvP match. When a challenger does the same, a message is broadcast to the arena, informing everybody of an upcoming match.</i><i><br /></i><i>During the period before the match, other players will be able to wager on the outcome with a Bookkeeping NPC. Once the Arena is cleared, bets can no longer be placed and both combatants are teleported to the arena floor, and after a short countdown, the duel begins and continues until one player has been defeated.</i><i><br /></i><i>The prize pool is always based upon the actual money that was bet, preventing system abuse but also providing incentive for duelists to encourage people to come and watch them fight!</i><i><br /></i><i>Finally, in order to give the entire proceedings a sense of progression, you can earn faction with the Pit Masters (who have both a PvE and PvP faction) for competing in the arena. Over time, you will earn access to new pets, armors and vanity items as well as unlocking special quests from the Pit Masters.</i></blockquote>
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source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_october_2014">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_october_2014</a></div>
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So it seems that PVP Arena is indeed 1v1 and also random.</div>
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Here is what is wrong with the core idea of instigated 1v1 PvP experience:</div>
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AOC is far from being balanced for 1v1.</div>
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Every MMO struggles with pvp balance and AOC is no exception. While I consider the game somewhat balanced I am maxed out on gear and AA, veteran pvper. It is true that every class can kill every other class, but some archetypes are more "forgiving" than others. Necro making mistake and getting KBed by Guardian? He probably will be dead before he gets a chance to get up. Guardian feared by Necro and DOTed up? A dent in Guardians HP pool. It takes different amount of skill to by successful with different classes and gear/AA difference makes that gap even wider. Furthermore the classes are obviously doing better at different things: Demo will excel at AOEing enemies in minigames and score kills, but same tactic doesn't apply to 1v1. </div>
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Last thing that makes 1v1 tricky to balance is the abundance of ready-to-use stuff that you can launch at enemy the second the fight starts. In duels you will always have your best stuff ready and we all know how things like Last Stand can affect 1vs1.</div>
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If you add gear and AA difference it can turn out that the fight will last couple of seconds and will end up in a bloody mess.</div>
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Just an example: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r82Ll7O9h80">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r82Ll7O9h80</a><br />
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This very much simulates what 1v1 arenas will turn out to be. Thats hardly fun for anyone.</div>
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Also there is no "depth" to 1v1. It usually results in "all in" type of combat where combatants simply try to overpower one another with everything they have at their disposal. There is no reason to hold off on any cooldown since the fight might last just couple of seconds.</div>
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So what could be better? 2v2 or 3v3 arenas. I would begin with 2v2. There is so much more complexity when it comes to four person pvp dynamics. Healing, CC coordination (very important with global CC immunites), target switching, baiting, kiting, bubbles and so on. Assassin might use dull pain and go after the Demo, but that Demo has POM partner and dull pain doesn't mitigate holy damage, but what if Assassin has HOX back up who will interrupt POM spells? It is infinitely more interesting both to play 2v2 as well as to watch 2v2.</div>
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What about bets? Well it's super easy to predict outcome of class vs class match up, especially if you know one of the combatants is skilled. Necro vs veteran Guardian? My money is on guardian. In 2v2? Well it can get tricky and of course more interesting to place the bets. </div>
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What about balance? Fuck balance! Let us go at each other throats. Make arena vicious, brutal, unforgiving content in which everything goes and winners take it all! If someone is not ready for top tier PVP competition then he has PvP events, Bori and PUG minigames to enjoy. Don't ruin your most loyal pvpers fun just to make things "even". Arenas will never be "even" or "balanced" so don't try to make it so, capitalize on competitive aspect of arenas. It will be fun because it WILL BE HARD. There is no glory to be had if there is no struggle. </div>
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And last and not least: put back "group" in to "group pvp".Seriously I think we all had enough with solo pvp experience and taking verbal abuse from frustrated, anonymous strangers.</div>
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If you support this then voice your opinion in this thread: <a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?190568-No-to-solo-PVP-arena!-voice-your-opinions"> http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?190568-No-to-solo-PVP-arena!-voice-your-opinions</a></div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-88570194156471581552014-11-03T06:00:00.001-08:002014-11-03T06:00:05.823-08:00Halloween event of 2014 - just good, no cheese<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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The weirdest time of the year is upon us and once more I dive in the ocean of cheese that Halloween events used to be. My oh my was I pleasantly surprised with this year's <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/thirst_of_the_serpent_god_halloween_event">Thirst of the Serpent God</a>: the writing on it was truly excellent. One of my many complains about the events in Age of Conan was poor, sometimes cheesy writing. Matter of fact last year's anniversary even was so poor that I didn't even write a review for it (it would have been 100% grade A complains). So what is so special about Serpent God? The story simply works and is largely inspired by REH Conan books. </div>
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What really surprised me that there wasn't a whole tons of text, the story naturally unfolded via game play and occasional cut scenes. </div>
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I have also appreciated the event for how well it handled ALL of my previous complains <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/11/night-of-lost-souls-spooky-in-oh-noes.html">posted here</a>. </div>
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Lets do a small re-cap of old events (Night of the Lost Souls):</div>
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- zero replayability,</div>
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- same rewards for everyone,</div>
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- no challenge at all,</div>
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- very short,</div>
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The Serpent God event has two parts: the story mode in which you learn about the bloody festival itself and the survival mode in which you have to last 10 minutes on the streets of Khemi filled with bloodthirsty priests of Set (NPC) and other players (with PVP enabled).</div>
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While I enjoyed the story mode for what it was I am not really up for re-doing it. I have to note that the quest chain is pretty long, but it's nicely paced so I would say it's just about right.</div>
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The survival mode nicely fills in that "repeatable content" gap with something that I can do on a daily basis and get a reward out of it.. Granted the PVP part of the event is not all that well done but it was a BOLD and fresh idea and defiantly a step into a right direction. </div>
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As for rewards Funcom decided to give us special tokens that can be traded for chests filled with random loot. I think it is a great to distribute loot, especially that you can get a unique mount if you try hard enough (or get lucky). You can check the rewards on <a href="http://henryxconan.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/2014-thirst-of-the-serpent-god-halloween-rewards/">Henryx's Blog</a>. </div>
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What more? The event is actually pretty hard. What pissed me off in the previous years that everything about the event was "on rails" and all the player had to do is just click the glowing item and kill the most obvious opponent. This time around not only you have to think a little (not too much) but also there is a buff/debuff mechanic that you have to manage in order to survive. I didn't have much troubles with the event, but I like that the devs made an effort to challenge the veteran players. In that regard the fact that official forums have "<a href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?190492-Halloween-Quest-Too-Hard">Halloween Quest Too Hard"</a> thread is a good thing.</div>
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Given the story, new mechanics, rewards and cut scenes I would dear to say that we got served a quality content. The survival mode has some major flaws (like an area where once you get criminal debuff you can get farmed), but I am all for allowing the devs to experiment and learn in the process.</div>
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The fact that you can also re-do previous Halloween events along with the new one is pretty great so if you intend to do Lost Souls, By The Light of the Moon and Serpent God you are looking at pretty sizable content that will take you a good couple of hours to tackle. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owned by eunuch</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mayhem on the streets of Khemi</td></tr>
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<br />Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-67299584610767493162014-10-02T06:00:00.001-07:002014-10-02T06:00:05.649-07:00T5 loot, update 4.4 and new era for AOC <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Age of Conan has always struggled when it comes to loot and stats. Not many of you will remember the old stats system that came with the game back in 2008. It was a mess! The items were ridden with weird, useless stats while not giving any meaningful progression. You could pretty much fight naked and there would be very little difference. When FC tried to create more powerful items in the old system things like PVP armor those came out with absurdly strong resistances. Since there was no future for AOC under old system (that is up for a debate but that it my opinion on that subject) so second game director Craig Morrison decided to re-do whole stats system and roll it into update 1.5 (that was both <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/03/obssesing-with-15-news-so-you-dont-have.html">BIG news and looooooong time waiting</a>). The 1.5 update was more or less a a success, but the system as a whole was designed in a very short-sighted way. New stats system didn't have any modern solutions to limit gear power (such as diminishing returns or hard-caps on stats) while AOC followed an absolutely unique to MMOs model under which 80 lvl was a max that would never be raised (not even by the single expansion that came out).</div>
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This created a scenario where gear progression was linear and people quickly realised that, apart from tanking, you really only need combat rating/magic damage and as much crit/bonus crit as possible. Then came the ROGS expansion and apart from new type of stats (critigation, tenacity) it brought more of the same: stacking huge amount of combat rating and critical damage. When T4 was finished it was pretty obvious that T4 loot is nothing than Khitai epics slightly buffed. It was evident that AOC had reached the point of no return: the stats could only go up and up to satisfy the players, but at the same time no dungeon epic drops should surpass what T4 had to offer. Prime example of this system backfiring on FC are Dragon Spine dungeons that are offering epic loot which is only super marginally better than Khitai drops. I am <a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/07/sand-and-jagged-rocks-ep4-upcoming.html">talking about 0,67 DPS difference</a>. At the same time Funcom began to re-use old content in a form of "un-chained" dungeons: old instances got updated with new mechanics and loot. The developers wanted to keep whole Hyboria relevant to the players, but that also meant that there couldn't be absurd gap between somewhat geared 80 lvl characters and max geared 80 lvl characters. If T5 had same lineral stats progression as T4 had it would have been a catastrophe. More so with recent pvp gear changes that brought pvp and pve in line. Simple stats increase on T5 pieces would bring AOC to square one with PVE items being again superior choice for pvpers.</div>
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Luckily such is not the case with T5 and the solutions applied to that tier of loot will change the AOCs future when it comes to itemization. </div>
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So without further ado here is a FAQ that I have compiled with the developer posts on TL:</div>
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<b>What new mechanics will T5 offer to the players?</b></div>
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Finesse hits and set bonuses and mini-set bonuses</div>
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<b>What are Finesse hits?</b></div>
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Those are "multi-hits"that can trigger on class specific abilities. </div>
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<b>Do Finesse hits work with spells?</b></div>
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Yes</div>
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<b>What class specific abilities will trigger finesse hits?</b></div>
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Currently we have confirmed information that finesse hits will only proc on top rank combos for each class. This rule applies to combos gained via Khitai books and upgrades to combos gained via AA system. </div>
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<b>Won't Finesse hits totally ruin PVP?</b></div>
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Finesse hits will only trigger on NPC target so it won't work in PVP. This mechanics was specifically designed so there could be meaningful gear progression in PVE without affecting PVP side of things.</div>
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<b>What are the exact numbers when it comes to finesse hits?</b></div>
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Finesse hits will be about damage...at least in T5. The damage on the additional hit will be relative to the lenght the animation and combo builders. The exact numbers are unknown and not yet finalized.</div>
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<b>What are set bonuses?</b></div>
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Those are passive bonuses tied to gear pieces that are made available to player once he collects enough pieces.</div>
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<b>How many items do I need to get set bonus?</b></div>
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First bonus is made available after equipping 3 pieces, next one requires 5 pieces and fully unlocked bonuses require 8 pieces.</div>
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<b>Are set bonuses only applied to armor?</b></div>
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No. Accessories have their own mini-bonuses, However as for now pieces required to unlock tiers of bonuses belong to same category (armor pieces do not share bonuses with accessories).</div>
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<b>Will set bonuses be exclusive to T5?</b></div>
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No. It's a new system that is supposed to be applied in the future to AOC items.</div>
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<b>Will set bonuses be tied to crafting?</b></div>
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Yes.</div>
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What kind of bonuses will players get from sets?</div>
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Bonuses are tied to roles: DPS/healing or support/tanking. This is could change. </div>
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<b>Will I be able to mix bonuses from future sets?</b></div>
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Yes. When more set bonuses are made available on new gear you could chose to max out bonuses with 8 pieces from one set or go for a mix of piece bonuses from two different sets. </div>
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<b>What are mini-bonuses?</b></div>
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Those are bonuses tied to weapons and accessories. No further information was posted on this subject.</div>
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<b>What will be T5 loot?</b></div>
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Full set of armor with finesse hit mechanic and set bonuses. There will also be weapons and necklaces with mini-set bonuses.</div>
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<b>Will T5 be the Dragon Spine raid?</b></div>
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No. T5 are "unchained raids" tied to Dragon Spine area. Palace of Cetriss will be made into full blown T6.</div>
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<b>Can you post the set bonuses?</b></div>
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Shit yeah I can:</div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-57244125019133002452014-08-11T14:38:00.000-07:002014-08-12T10:35:57.309-07:00Interview with Peter Lavoie "Pyzerius" Massicotte <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I give the interview with a true "working class hero", a man that co-created much of the most enoyed content and AOC (and never truely got a credit for doing so) . He is currently tinkering with class balance changes on TL server.<br />
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<b>1/ You have showed up on TL forum around the time Cirith left for break so please tell us: have you locked him in a deep dungeon (Scarlet Citadel style) and took his place or perhaps you got your developer position in a much less sinister circumstances? How did you end up on AOC team?</b></div>
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I've known since I was about 7 years old that I wanted to design games, but never thought a career in game design was attainable or possible.</div>
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In 2006, I began my career in the industry, starting as a QA tester. I further specialized my talents by learning and becoming a certification tester for the three major console companies, as well as serving as a French localization tester.</div>
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When Funcom opened up in Montreal, I switched over with the intention of trying to make my way into the development team. I subbed to Age of Conan immediately to get a sense of what the game was about. I remember my first go through Tortage, the music, (Knut is a genius imho), the ambience...I was hooked. I would go on from there to level every class to 80 to really experience my options, (having been an MMO veteran, this is typically how I approach MMOs). After 4 months of QA at Funcom, I applied to become a designer and got the position. Thus, I began my journey as a content designer for Age of Conan, back in 2010. I was ecstatic!</div>
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My first assignment was to create a solo dungeon in Kara Korum, so I designed and implemented Refuge of the Apostate. From there, I moved on to group and raid designs, working on dungeons such as The Vile Nativity, Temple of Erlik, Jade Citadel and Sepulcher of the Wyrm. Cirith and I became fast friends during this process, (as we worked together on these dungeons), eventually going on to becoming roommates. I even had the honor of being co-best man at his wedding! </div>
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I was also tasked with the responsibility of handling the changes to Thoth-Amon's Stronghold and Amphitheatre of Karutonia (normal and unchained).</div>
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There was a period of about 18 months or so where I was not present on Age of Conan. I won't go into too many details as I don't want to bore anyone, but I had a nervous breakdown. I have always had to deal with depression and anxiety disorders my whole life and in the years I spent in the gaming industry trying to get noticed, I pushed myself physically and mentally beyond my limits for too long, which ended up in a crash. After lots of therapy and rest, (during which Funcom was infinitely patient and understanding), I am back with a vengeance and ready to tackle whatever needs to be done to continue enriching Age of Conan!</div>
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Just so happens that Cirith was getting married and going off on a honeymoon adventure, so I picked up some of the stuff he wanted done while he was gone. He's back now, 100% more married than ever. (Age of Cirith: Chained)</div>
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<b>2/ Please explain, and in details too, what is exactly that you do as a developer? Most of us have a very vague idea how the content for the game is made. Lets say you need to develop a dungeon. What tools and assets do you use? Do you have complete creative freedom or do you follow some kind of rough draft of a dungeon? </b></div>
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- First thing we do is decide what the design goals of the dungeon will be . This acts as a sort of foundation for the whole dungeon, something we can come back to for inspiration on spells, NPCs, etc... It also helps keep the entire dungeon cohesive. During this step, we will decide the basic level design, (layout).</div>
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- After the design goals have been decided, we then move on to the concepting phase. Here we will decide how many bosses we'll have and begin a writeup on their design. For the concepting phase, we normally don't decide numbers, just a rough draft of how we want the fights to work and which of our core design pillars we’ll be trying to hit and how. We begin documentation at this point, and once we're happy with our concept, we send it off for approval, (it normally bounces back and forth a few times before both the designer and lead are happy with it). We don't have 'complete' creative freedom, but we have a huge amount of creative freedom, which makes Funcom a lot more interesting to me than some other studios in the area.</div>
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- Once the concept is done, we begin the design. This is where we cement things in our documentation to have a guide to follow when implementing things; this is always written and considered from the players’ perspective with the sort of experiences they will encounter at the forefront. Around this point is where we see if we need to request new art assets or whether we can use existing ones. </div>
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- Next is the implementation phase. This is probably the longest phase, as we now have to "make" everything we whipped up with our imaginations in the concept/design phase. We have many tools at our disposal to help us with this, but I can’t go into much detail as they are largely proprietary. Now we can start scripting logic and prototyping mechanics alongside abilities to see how they play out in reality rather than just in theory.</div>
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Moving on to particle effects is a logical next step, since they are tied to the spells we just made, so we'll decide on spell visuals with special attention paid to what we need to communicate through visuals. For this step, we either use existing particles if they fit nicely, or create new ones if we can't find a particle that does exactly what we want it to do. Soon after, we create every NPC needed for the dungeon and decide what armor they should wear, what race they will be, etc... The World Designer will be working on the physical dungeon, and once they have a version of it ready to use, this is usually in grey box format to start so that we can test mechanics in the ‘correct’ space as soon as possible. </div>
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These steps are usually cyclical in nature, so we constantly shift from one to another and come back to each several times until the dungeon is ready for testlive. This iterative approach to design is pretty important to how we work and allows us to adapt the original concept as we play through the mechanics and later after we start getting player feedback.</div>
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<b>3/ Can you share some details how the class are adjusted during the struggle to balance the game? Again many of us think that the developers haphazardly mix a bunch of nonsense together and call it a day. Pure math and number crunching, player feedback, statistics and developer’s own experience with certain class – how are those used in the process?</b></div>
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The first step is to address the problem at hand or the outline the goal we want to achieve. For example in the current iterations you are seeing the goals are two fold, firstly continuing with the class re-balancing that kicked off in the last patch and secondly highlighting key feats which are undesirable or largely avoided by players and reworking them into something which is at least an interesting option. Of course time factors for the patch are a consideration in what we are able to do too.</div>
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The next step we took in this case is to go through thread after thread on the forums and start compiling a list of sane suggestions and valid problems for each class and the game as a whole.</div>
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Once we've formed a list, we begin research, testing and documenting on the shortlisted changes so that we can highlight the problem and then think about possible solutions. Once we have a bigger picture after looking into every item on the list, we consider how much of an impact making these changes will have on the game, (ie. if they are particularly skewed toward one class/archetype, whether adding any of these suggestions will make other classes feel less useful, etc..). If we have ideas for some changes that we have wanted to make for a while, we normally throw them in this list too.</div>
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Next would be patching out a rough draft of our work, essentially paper prototyping the changes. This process means reading through a lot of feedback and making tweaks where necessary. Here's where it's easy to get trapped, because the player feedback is easy to drown in. We have to make sure that we keep a level head and use our research to make informed decisions, and not just implement everything we see on the forum. There's not much more to it than that, we just bounce between prototyping, feedback, tweaking & balancing until it's ready for live!</div>
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I think the most frustrating thing about class balancing is the feeling that we will never be truly satisfied. For example, the latest class balancing, Cirith gave me a list of 10-12 things to change. Since he was on vacation and I was inspired, I went a little nuts and added a lot to it. We've now reached the point where we want to patch it out and where I am needed elsewhere, but I feel like there is so much more I can do! But this is why we want to keep these class tweaks coming in future patches, its easier for us to balance in batches and we can then gradually gauge the state of the game and that provides a spring board for the next set of tweaks.</div>
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<b>4/ You have developed Refuge of the Apostate solo dungeon which, at that time, was a pretty unique in AOC (compared to old, boring Villas in Noble District). Where did you get the ideas and inspirations for this dungeon? The maze/puzzle part of the dungeon reminds me of old school Tomb Rider and the “nightmare” sequence looks a lot like Max Payne 1. Am I on to something or did you have something totally different on your mind?</b></div>
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For Refuge, I wanted to bring a console-like experience to our MMO. It was something that I felt was lacking from the MMO genre in general, and since I had an opportunity, I decided to go for it and try for something different that AoC players had not necessarily experienced in our game. Since Refuge was going to be a solo experience, we had a little more freedom than in group or raid dungeons where there are many unpredictable variables, (players). </div>
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I had just finished Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and was nuts about it, so the maze area was fueled largely by that. I won't lie, getting that aspect of the dungeon functional was probably the longest and most difficult task of all of Refuge, but I am happy with how it turned out. As for the nightmare sequence, both the artist and myself loved the Scarecrow sequences in Batman: Arkham Asylum so we used that as inspiration, (the artist even threw a "scarecrow" straw dummy in one of the prison cells in the nightmare realm if you look closely). The nightmare realm itself is just the boss room of the actual dungeon broken up into several pieces to make a new, creepy version of that boss room.</div>
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Fun Fact: The Tian-bai in the nightmare realm is actually the largest NPC we have ever put in the game, (take that Frost Father!)</div>
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<b>5/ How much of a lore fan are you? Is Hyboria just a setting for MMO you are working on or is it something that you are passionate about? When designing new content do you pay close attention to making it “in line” with lore, or is it something that you leave to the writers and artists?</b></div>
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We are all lore fans here on the AoC team! I don't think there is a single person who was not read every Howard story. When making new things, keeping the setting in mind has always been important. Sometimes we stray a little from the setting, but it's normally to offer players something fresh, or something that will improve their quality of life, (therefore, something mechanically fresh that adds a lot to the game but does not necessarily fit with lore. A good example would be the plethora of exotic mounts. There's only so many types of horses we can make.) Its inevitable any individual/company inheriting a licence will take a little bit of artistic freedom, but the essence of Howard’s world is always in our minds.</div>
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<b>6/ If you can share this: how much server wider stats are available to the developers? Characters made, resources gathered, gold acquired, most kills by class, most deaths by class, most crafted item, most popular dungeons, bosses killed most oftne…. Most of us drool at the thought of having those stats to win forum arguments. In all seriousness thou: are stats important in day-to-day development, or perhaps they are just a tool used to monitor for very very serious issues?</b></div>
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The database contains a vast amount of information which can be cross referenced to aid in the solutions to many problems, however data can only really prove so much and should never be the only tool or factor in determining the solution to any problem. Something we added recently for example was zone traffic information to see where players are going and when, its some very interesting reading, especially during World Boss and PvP Festival weeks.</div>
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<br />Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-45271804405407013452014-07-22T07:31:00.002-07:002014-07-22T07:31:39.420-07:00A taste of things to come<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We all know that Funcom has a nasty history of not keeping their promises. Fact. However, say what you will, I am rather impressed with last few months: stuff like pvp gear or pvp events (never mind what I think about the quality of those) got promised and then delivered at speedy pace. Furthermore recent patch 4.3 class changes (and more to come) gave me that warm feeling that maybe, just maybe, AOC might be in the right hands for once.</div>
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So I will let my guard down (a guard of an asshole sceptic) to daydream about the features that were already promised and are in the works.</div>
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<b>New Conan movie Arnold</b></div>
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This is a pie with a side dish of pizza: not only we are getting new Conan movie (have you seen pictures of Arnold lately? Bro must be lifting), but also in-game movie tie-in. While Game Director Joel Bylos mentions that the thing is not set in stone I think Funcom would be stupid not to cash in on the release of CTB movie. However I won't be disappointed if nothing comes out of it since there is a lot much much cooler stuff to be looking forward to.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_directors_letter_february_2013">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_directors_letter_february_2013</a></div>
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<b>Cross server PvP and PvE queues</b></div>
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I will be honest: I am eye-balling Crom server from time to time because a lot of cool stuff is happening there simply because of a very high population. Furthermore the idea of queuing up for dungeon in AOC is just awesome (yeah I know that it is a MMO industry's standard for some time now, AOC is old!). Nothing drives me away from PVE more than time consuming LFG/LFM and then getting everyone to the dungeon. It feels so dated.</div>
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<b>Unchained PvP Revamps</b></div>
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I don't really care about it (probably because I am on top of minigame pvp food chain), but if it got more people back into game or introduce them to pvp (chances are it would) then bring it on. Not on top of my "zomg" wish list but it is out there.</div>
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<b>Tradeskill System</b></div>
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To quote the letter: "This is probably the single most anticipated update from the players". QFT! Its been so long since I have crafted in AOC that I forgot that it is even in game anymore. This is my #2 thing that I am looking forward to the most and, from what I understand, it will change pretty much every aspect of AOC. I have always enjoyed this type of activity in MMOs and if I could...*gasp* PVP and craft at the same time? No more content is needed then.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_april_2013">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_april_2013</a></div>
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<b>Palace of Cetriss </b></div>
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As of now we know that POC (see what I did there?) will be a tier 5 raid content. I am planing to REALLY get into raiding when next tier goes live. This will be the first opportunity for me to participate in discovery & progression parts of raiding. Until now when I was raiding (T3 and T4) it was with an experienced team that knew the fights like the back of their hands. Because of this, even if I was contributing DPS, I felt a little like I am being carried through the encounters. I never had to "figure out" Zodiac and train for taking him down, the knowledge was simply served to me on a golden platter. New raid gives me a chance to enter the unknown with the rest of the guild and figure stuff out with them. I might like it or it might be a horrible experience, but I will certainly try it.</div>
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<b>New minigame map</b></div>
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So the letter says that "Palace of Cetriss and the new minigame map which are being developed in tandem.". Kind of forgotten stuff, eh? Since I don't really need tokens or pvp exp anymore I am usually just rotating two maps: HV and LT over and over and over again (and I am not even slightly bored of them, such a good design). I don't really feel a need for new minigame in a rotation...unless it is something unique like 3v3 or new type of map setting (deathmatch!). </div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_directors_letter_may_2013">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_directors_letter_may_2013</a></div>
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<b>Achievements</b></div>
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This is my #3 on the "zomg" list. It seems to be combining all the things that I already love in AOC: lore, exploration and vanity items. PvP achievements are only sweetening the deal. Coupled with crafting system achievements are a feature that will add a long lasting content to AOC even if it means merely re-visiting old stuff (Mitra is my witness I will go back and complete all quests in Tortage just to get an achievement!)</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_june_2013">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_june_2013</a></div>
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<b>The Great Hyborian Race</b></div>
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I will pass on that and I am glad that it got put back on a shelf. AOC already has too much stuff for new characters to do and merely not enough for seasoned veteran's maxed out toons. I want to finally have some sort of progression and creating new character from scratch and then re-doing old content as fast as possible seems like a nightmarish idea to me.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_august_2013">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_august_2013</a></div>
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<b>Tier 4 PvP gear</b></div>
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First of all I am so glad that strange and alien concept (at least to the previous team) of PvP items > PvE items for PvP got finally fully implemented in AOC. I don't really feel the need for even more power in PvP (especially since it was made clear that T5 POC raid drops will not upset the pvp balance) and the power gap between fresh lvl 80 and PvP T4 veteran will get even bigger but... well I don't care, I just want more goals in PvP and this is certainly a powerful incentive for me to look at PvP as something else than just getting more kills. What I am worried is that T4 gear will be hard-locked to PvP events which.. I am less than ecstatic about . There has been a talk that T4 pvp gear will be more about choices than flat power increase but lets face it: gear for pvp is about getting that max crit rating + combat rating values. Unless we get some hard caps on stats or diminishing returns (which I am a big proponent of) there is a very little room for pvp gear optimization (and by little I mean none). </div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_december_2013">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_december_2013</a></div>
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<b>Slithering Chaos as 12-man instance</b></div>
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I have always loved the concept of smaller scale raids as pulling together 24 people can be very challenging for smaller guilds (or just damn impossible). It can also be a great second choice for those raid night when not everyone shows up but there are still a bunch of people ready & willing to take on something bigger than 6-man hardmode</div>
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<b>New Alternate Advancement Abilities and Loot Progression in Tier 5 raids</b></div>
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New AAs? #1 spot on my "this is fucking awesome" list. I am a little worried with the implementation because many peoples (me included) are already capped on their AAs and are accumulating every day more and more AA points (I think I have something like 150/120/160 to spend). There is something else that is also intriguing: "<i>New Alternate Advancement Abilities and Loot Progression in Tier 5 raids - these two are intimately tied together and we have a solid idea of how we are going to build player progression through Tier 5 raids and new content. I’m saving all the details for a future game director letter, but new weapon combos, new items and new ways to play your favorite class are all on the table!</i>". So new AAs are exclusive to Tier 5 raiding? One a one hand it addresses my main woe "not enough content for veterans", but also seems like a very small player base would get their hands on new AAs if it meant that you had to be in T5 raiding guild. If new AAs are purely cosmeting (and something tells me they will) then new AAs will be just more e-peen0r to weave around (I am more than fine with it).</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_april_2014">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_april_2014</a></div>
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<b>PvP streak reward system</b></div>
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What I like about it is that "there will be different types of streaks covering both the regular minigame level and the tournament mode". Tournament mode! Holy crap how I wish we could have "group" back in "group pvp" (another wild concept that couldn't be fully grasped by old team). To actually group up with pvp buddies for pvp....like I used to back before freaking 1.6 (yeah 2010 called and they want their group pvp back).On the other hand I am a little afraid that PvP steak will be, again, a simple "more tokens more pvp xp" type of deal which PvP events turned out to be. I don't need that.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_may_2014">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_may_2014</a></div>
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<b>Unchained Raids</b></div>
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Unchained T1 raid will be first encounter in Tier 5. This is smart move by Funcom since, as far as I know it, majority of T4 raiders are done & bored (TM) with the Citadel and are looking for a fresh challenge and progression. Since I have NEVER done a T1 raid (imagine that) this is something that I might want to explore a little further. I also hope that unchained T1 will provide raiders with T4 tokens (it should since its part of T5) so I could complete my T4 set.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_june_2014">http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_june_2014</a></div>
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That is about it, all the major and exciting promises in one place. Without being overly negative about it this looks pretty awesome. </div>
Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-87017319633888073832014-06-25T02:17:00.001-07:002014-06-25T02:17:35.595-07:00PvP Events - not so hot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJnQ-L69nbFKkaXLFshj9V0aINLmK56SsgaYqIJNYY5QjVCLnqzoAdeSIBj9Yx3eypWD-OfWCyL6BlSlEdLDxs8OAMXzs5spmsJNJmtT3sBLgKi8xQ4l2ccmvOZ4g0fSV6wrl_tIkE36jc/s1600/627391b5-7301-47cd-bd4b-6f30ff016747.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJnQ-L69nbFKkaXLFshj9V0aINLmK56SsgaYqIJNYY5QjVCLnqzoAdeSIBj9Yx3eypWD-OfWCyL6BlSlEdLDxs8OAMXzs5spmsJNJmtT3sBLgKi8xQ4l2ccmvOZ4g0fSV6wrl_tIkE36jc/s1600/627391b5-7301-47cd-bd4b-6f30ff016747.jpg" height="176" width="320" /></a></div>
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I didn't want to post about<a href="http://www.ageofconan.com/news/festival_of_bloodshed"> Festival of Bloodshed </a>until I have taken it for a good spin (Bori taught me that impressions can be deceiving). My verdict: I don't like it in it's current form. I am not claiming to be objective on this matter, but when it comes to my personal opinion I want to be honest in here: it is a cheap content done in a sloppy manner and it doesn't address my issues with the game. Not even Funcom denies that this content was cheap to produce and it really shows. But quite honestly I have a low expectations for 6 year old MMO when it comes to budget and resources allocations (even more so now that AOC doesn't have it's dedicated team). Still I cannot overlook the sloppy implementation of the events and by that I mean complete lack of any UI and visual indicators that would allow me to have a basic understanding of just what the hell is going on. You see all the information about the events is feed to player via on screen messages and system whispers. That is just less than elegant. Any revelant information is usually served to me with just tons of text clutter informing me that I might not have enough soul shards to perform something. Things like score goes into whispers which is even more messy. The result? Things like arena events are just blood baths in which you "Live.Die.Repeat" (in true<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/"> Edge of Tomorrow</a> fashion) with your guildies asking over TS: "is it over yet?", "is this still going?" How the hell I should know? </div>
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To add insult to injury whatever class balance issues that are present in minigames are magnified ten folds when it comes to open world pvp. My recipe for utter destruction? Take soldiers, and some healers and just a pinch of ranged damage (Necro for 30s dots is preferable). Arenas are just rogues chasing casters while getting their asses pierced by ranges with soldiers just racking up the kills. There is no respawn downtime, no limited lives or any structure to those "arenas" so if you die just respawn and run back. Live.Die.Repeat (unless you are a soldier and in that case just live). </div>
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Furthermore you have to take just absurd amount of quests from Picts NPC instead of those quests just spawning when the event is active (minigame style). Since I am already crapping on Picts I might as well go all out: I think that it was a horrible decision lore wise to use Picts for these events. It's a pet peeve of mine but seeing skin clad, body painted, gruesome savages that Picts are just HANGING OUT IN in Tarantia Commons with the locals is dumb. Funcom have always treated Conan source material with respect and this is first time in 6 years when I am actually upset about the story, writing and the implementation. </div>
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But I can stomach all that. Class balance was always out of whack and the PvP Events got a lot of fixes and updates which is a nice change from Bori. My problem is being capped on gear/AA/pvp lvls. I have absolutely zero incentive to do those events. This is still a MMO and it needs progression. </div>
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I could just repeat every point that I have made in "<a href="http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/10/no-progresion-hurts-aoc.html">No progression</a>" post and it would be as valid as it was a year ago.</div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7957022066967125743.post-75322098277393218082014-06-11T06:04:00.002-07:002014-06-11T06:04:15.593-07:00Interview with Joel Bylos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFHHcuD5EifiCvylZ5Eu7L4RZv6pQC-7jwe5mYD4kGgNJzMrfRMbQkKmVPuPFAkMyZzjd_1_18wYp2Q2iqwJ5O_j6tYrQZZk9lSpl1pne6bLA3lNUF0QnOac0DFu8h1MAJHx8HpXKrG354/s1600/joel-bylos.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFHHcuD5EifiCvylZ5Eu7L4RZv6pQC-7jwe5mYD4kGgNJzMrfRMbQkKmVPuPFAkMyZzjd_1_18wYp2Q2iqwJ5O_j6tYrQZZk9lSpl1pne6bLA3lNUF0QnOac0DFu8h1MAJHx8HpXKrG354/s1600/joel-bylos.jpeg" height="277" width="320" /></a></div>
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Joel "Nusquam" Bylos (as seen in this picture "air guitaring" theme to 1982 Conan movie) took his time to talk to me about the nitty gritty details of running 3 MMOs at once and keeping AOC relevant in the MMO genere: </div>
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<b>1/ How does one tackle such an enormous task as taking over two major MMOs (AOC and AO) in addition to already time consuming TSW? I am sure things have settled down by now, but how were those first few initial weeks? Have you kept tabs on post ROGS Age of Conan developments or was there a need to catch up on a lot of things?</b></div>
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With trepidation is the right answer, I think. It all happened incredibly fast, the downsizing of the company and I was suddenly in a position where I had responsibility for three projects instead of one. </div>
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The first few weeks were complete insanity. On one hand I had a new, much smaller team, with responsibility for more than one project. All of the team had different levels of expertise with different sets of tools – AO has a completely different set of tools to Age of Conan (with a couple of exceptions) and The Secret World has major changes again.</div>
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And then, as well, I had to catch up on everything that had been done since I stopped working on the game (roughly a month after launch) and even though I had been following and still playing, I needed to get more insight into the playerbase (they evolve over time!) and see what they were asking for.</div>
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I had been following the development of new content on Age of Conan – Craig has always been a mentor, so I always stopped by for a chat whenever I was in Montreal – but I wasn’t “in touch” in the way that someone who works full time on the project is. </div>
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In the end, it was a pretty frantic period and I’m not sure I’d tackle it the same way again, but the choice for me was pretty clear – I wanted to do what was best for the games and their future was quite uncertain in terms of development so I wanted to ensure that they weren’t left untended and unloved.</div>
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<b>2/ How exactly the development team is shared across the games? Many of us have this vague idea that devs, much like a horde, just rush in to work on AOC and after some predetermined time drop everything and switch to TSW. Could you elaborate a little how things are handled with a centralized team?</b></div>
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It’s somewhat more organized than that, but only barely.</div>
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Essentially, we have some devs who are focused full time on a particular game (like Cirith), usually based on prior knowledge of the tools and the systems. And then we have more general developers – coders, artists, animators, audio etc. We build the roadmaps for the games at the beginning of each year, get estimates on the development resources as needed and then shift those resources around from patch to patch.</div>
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Things get a little rocky when something takes longer than expected *ahem* Tokyo *ahem* and that can have unfortunate ripple effects on the other projects.</div>
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We’ve learned a bit over the past year, and we’re refining our processes to avoid these kind of situations but sometimes it happens to us.</div>
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<b>3/ How does one set a development road map for already 6 year old MMO such AOC? Is it more or less about steady flow of additions or perhaps we will see adventure packs making their way back to Hyboria? ROGS sized expansions are ruled out or perhaps nothing is set in stone right now?</b></div>
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Well, I can probably rule out ROTGS sized expansions off the bat – my team for that project was much larger than the current live team for all three projects, everybody on the team was experienced at creating content for Conan and we had 1.5 years to work on it.</div>
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Currently we set the roadmap based on a few things – past promises to the playerbase that need to be fulfilled, things that we think need serious love (usually confirmed by the player base) and what we can achieve that provides long-term value to the playerbase.</div>
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Anyone who has been playing knows that we have been putting out some recurring, automated content – for me this is important so that people always have multiple options when they log in. But hand-crafted content tends to reach a higher quality bar with the downside that it takes more investment.</div>
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I want to get us into a state where we have fixed/revamped/improved systems that are not functioning as they should, and delivering new content for those systems. This means PvP and PvE, but it also means things like Achievements and Crafting. </div>
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I’m a bit more of a narrow focus developer. I believe that fewer systems, done well, is always more interesting for players than a ridiculously broad spectrum of systems done in a mediocre manner.</div>
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Unfortunately, Conan currently falls into the second category, so we have to choose to focus to certain things and improve them to a standard we are happy with, before we move on. </div>
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<b>4/ In recent interview Matt 'Cirith Gorgor” Bennett hinted at pvp being one of the features that will now get their fair amount of focus. Are you planning to address just the most pressing issues in pvp or is it a sign of more balanced approach with both pve and pvp getting attention?</b></div>
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This falls a bit in line with what I mentioned above – we’re going to put focus on the core elements of PvP (items, abilities) for a while. </div>
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On the other side of that, it was long overdue to make some additions to content on the PvP side of the game. We do want to take a more rounded approach to the way we deliver content – but I hesitate to divide content along neat lines of PvP or PvE. Especially in Age of Conan, which has open world PvP. Theoretically, all content should be built around creating player enjoyment. </div>
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<b>5/ How are you handling the issue of inheriting a lot of unfinished content that you and your team are now expected to deliver (like Dragon's Spine). Is there a temptation to just throw everything away and start working on your own ideas or perhaps it is common thing in games development that sometimes you have to finish someone else's work?</b></div>
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Heh, so I have this presentation that I give to newly hired designers. It’s kind of a “set your expectations for this type of work” presentation. One of my points in that presentation is that nobody who works for a decent sized company will ever work on “their game”.</div>
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It goes for almost all designers, they are usually working towards somebody else’s vision and even the people with ultimate creative responsibility are limited by the budget/tools/team etc.</div>
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So the live team, being pretty experienced in their own right, get this and I don’t think it bothers them much. I’m certainly used to it, Khitai was determined as the expansion location before I was on the project, I had no say in the scope etc.</div>
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Unfortunately, what has caused problems for us on Age of Conan was the knowledge loss from the old team to the new. The coders who work on the crafting system now are not the people who worked on it originally. The artists on Dragon’s Spine are not the guys who originally modelled it etc.</div>
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And that is the part that slows you down – having to learn how/why something is built the way it is. It’s almost always faster to start from scratch than start over, but we don’t have the resources to start many of these things from scratch. So we learn, adapt and hopefully get them finished eventually!</div>
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<b>6/ With The Legend of Conan in production and Paradox Entertainment fully backing the reboot will AOC also provide content based on the film? You have already confirmed that it might happen, but are you perceiving it as a great opportunity for the game to reach new players? Did the last Conan The Barbarian movie with Jason Momoa have any significant impact on AOC population?</b></div>
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I think anything that spreads the word of Conan out to more people (and I mean the general REH word of Conan) is a good thing for the game. I’m sure we’ll do some tie-ins to the movie, it really does depend on the scope I am given for said tie-ins.</div>
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I don’t have the numbers from the period around the release of the earlier movie, but it is always hard to pinpoint the cause and effect around population fluctuations, so I usually don’t play the guessing game unless there is a large and very obvious trend.</div>
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Age of Conan’s population is at a point where it seems to be quite resilient to the factors that affect other games – like newly released MMORPGs for example. </div>
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<b>7/ Are there any plans to change/adjust the current payment model? Will we see the F2P expanded? The Rise of The Godslayer expansion opened up to F2p crowd? Or perhaps current subscription model is working well? With "The Savage Coast of Turan" we had an adventure pack that was sold as separately regardless if someone was a subscriber or not. Is this something that is again being considered or perhaps we will see something totally new?</b></div>
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In this regard, I have very little control. I have made a series of recommendations about the future of F2P on AoC, several of which were taken from the community, but I don’t have any news on that front.</div>
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I would prefer, currently, to keep any future content updates for subscribers for as long as we have that model. System updates become available to everybody and I think the base content for a free player is already very generous. That said, I agree it is slightly odd to have to purchase the expansion and then subscribe to use anything beyond Gateway to Khitai. I have made certain recommendations in this regard, but it isn’t my call</div>
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As for whether the current subscription model is doing well, it’s probably something you’d be better off asking the business people. Age of Conan earns money, which is the single most important factor for my team and I, and as long as it continues to do so I don’t see dramatic changes being made to the way things work.</div>
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<b>8/ If we were to day dream about content based on a particular REH Conan story, what would it be?</b></div>
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Let me tell you a story. When the expansion was wrapping up in 2010, I wrote a proposal for a series of single player adventures based in the world of REH. They were essentially reproductions of the Howard adventures in the Age of Conan engine, and you could buy them stand alone, or tied to the MMO itself.</div>
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You played Conan through these adventures, targeted to 3-4hrs long and at the end of each, you received a code which could be redeemed in Age of Conan for an item based on these legendary adventures.</div>
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Alas, the team was moved to Montreal, we went through another round of layoffs and I was moved to The Secret World. But I still have the design document I wrote for the first of these adventures, and it was Pool of the Black One.</div>
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Why? Because we have the assets for that island, we have the Black Ones, we have the pirate assets and because making it as a prototype for the concept would have been extremely cheap.</div>
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Those reasons really haven’t changed, so if I was to start building adventures based directly on the REH stories, Pool of the Black One would likely be where I would start.</div>
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<b>9/ are you still actively developing AOC or have you switched to more of a Game Director's role and deal only with "vision and direction" ?</b></div>
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Those quotation marks make vision and direction seem like they are simple concepts! Believe me, not at all.</div>
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In any case, on Age of Conan I still get my hands dirty in the tools and on a design level. I wrote the story and flow design for the last few events, implemented the quests (at least for Halloween) and wrote all of the texts.</div>
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I certainly don’t (and can’t) do as much as anybody who works full time on the project, but I like to use the tools every now and then. It keeps me clear on the limitations of the engine that we are working with and helps me to understand more what my team is struggling with.</div>
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I don’t need to be an expert – that’s why I have a team full of them – I just need to be able to understand what the experts are saying and why.</div>
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I hope that gives you some insight, thanks for listening!</div>
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Slithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03822227708446503893noreply@blogger.com1