Doing a live interview this Sunday with an AoC dev.. looking for questions

[shiznitz]

I say fuck the intro. No one gives a shit about the guy's resume. We just want to know what's in the game.

[Nerion]

Well, according to the station manager who works with getting us interviews we are now at 30 minutes of question time. I am seriously downsizing the coversation and the first part to go is any jokes or intro. We will tell the audience who is and past that he will be asked questions about the game! I still think we can fit alot in there as long as we are not afraid to cut him short if things begin to get lengthty and responses seem rehearsed.

[Salamok]

Well, according to the station manager who works with getting us interviews we are now at 30 minutes of question time. I am seriously downsizing the coversation and the first part to go is any jokes or intro. We will tell the audience who is and past that he will be asked questions about the game! I still think we can fit alot in there as long as we are not afraid to cut him short if things begin to get lengthty and responses seem rehearsed.

Seriously find out what IP I need to masquerade as to get both boobies AND blood.

[Der Helm]

Seriously find out what IP I need to masquerade as to get both boobies AND blood.

I second that.

[UnSub]

I'd be interested in a response to what AoC is bringing to the table apart from boobies and blood and how they are going to deflect criticism that including such things will bring (and no, "It's just a game" doesn't cut it).

[Trippy]

They need something more than boobies and blood?

[WindupAtheist]

Seriously, ask if you can sit in chairs!

[lamaros]

If he avoids a question or doesn't answer it fully. Ask him again. Don't be a fanboy, be an interviewer.

[schild]

If he avoids a question or doesn't answer it fully. Ask him again. Don't be a fanboy, be an interviewer.

Unfortunately, I do not have an interview with the AoC dev.

[Nerion]

We aren't asking him any questions to do with his past or about how the team is doing. The only thing we are covering is the game itself. My plan if a question is avoided is to just simply keep rephrasing it until success is found, but overrall I am thankful he is coming on the show and will at least thank him for it on air.

[Nerion]

Here is a list of what we plan on asking, give me some feedback if you can:


Nerion's Questions:

*I really want to know what you are doing to guarantee large fights are playable AT LAUNCH and not lagged to death or visually stuttering, because not a single game I have played has been able to really do this?
*Concerning the use of third party programs that could turn the tide of battle, I would like to know if you guys are just going to use just GM's to hunt for them or what kind planning is being done to make sure these programs do not ruin the gameplay?
*How long are you guys planning, atm, to design 10v10 and an average 1v1 to last in pvp?
*Are you planning on progressing a persons defenses and resistances, through gear, at the same rate as their DPS or are you going to take the path of WOW and orient progression primarily around DPS?
*Regarding Crowd Control, how are you going to deal with this subject, such as the max length you expect someone to be CC'ed in combat, the mechanics to prevent chain CC, and also how you see CC's role on the battlefield?
*In crafting, where do the resources come from to make the best gear, and on top of that what sphere of the game does the best recipes hail from?
*Is the gameplay, quests, and maximum progression going to require a combined PvP/PvE effort or is PvP and PvE seperated for the most part?
*From the French community, are there going to be special pvp rewards from blood money and if so how do they compare to crafted and pve raiding gear?
*How are you guys planning on intergrating PvE abilities, dps, and gear with PvP gameplay?
*In PvP gameplay are you balancing heals to outdps straightforward dmg 1v1 in most situations without CC or interrupts; and secondly, I noticed you said HoT's are going to be the primary healing, will each healers HoT's stack on a target or only one hot total per person?
*How is the buff system going function such as duration, raid buffing, seperate groups, and finally how easily dispellable will buffs be in pvp?

Axem's Questions:

1) Walk me through how a siege begins - How is war declared, Window of Opportunity, and sign ups
2) Will you be able to do damage to a town that is shown or felt after the siege?
3) Can you give me an example of what it takes to build a weapon of war or defense in AoC, time to build and how much time to gather resources?
4) Does sieging have any maximum numbers on the field?
5) Any difference between FFA and normal server Battle seiges
6) Ideal Guild Size for a min/maxer of all spheres of gameplay?
7) Guild Management interface - Logging, Ranks, Permissions, guild bank, guild leveling can you give us a rundown of what is unique about AoC's?
8)  PvE raid interface - 24 Man? Same as PvP or is there a special friending system for allies during sieges?
9) What kind of systems are being put in place to prevent chain sieging of a single city?
10) When someone dies during a siege, what is your goal for how long it takes them to get back into combat from death and how serious is this death effect?
11) How is the ticketing system going to be tallied and how much favor is going to be leaned to the defense?

[Der Helm]

Ask  him about the god dammend "servers determinates avaible content (blood/boobies etc.) by client IP" stuff. That could be THE  game breaker for me. And I do not think I am alone.

[angry.bob]

Ask  him about the god dammend "servers determinates avaible content (blood/boobies etc.) by client IP" stuff. That could be THE  game breaker for me. And I do not think I am alone.

No, you are not. Subtract either of the two and it's not any sort of Conan I want any part of. Frankly, if they have to make extra effort to make toggleable boobs for those over/under 18 so chained, captive women go topless for customers over 18, they need to do it.

Frankly, anyone who would let their kid play a Conan game with decapitations and rotting, crow-eaten corpses all over the landscape before said kid's had a real boob in their real hand in real life needs to reevaluate their parenting overall.

[Modern Angel]

So I have to ask the Germans and others dealing with a censored Conan: surely you can vote that sort of stuff out, right? It's not really the fault of the business so much as these draconian censorship laws. Is there going to reach a tipping point where the global Boomer population dies off and the laws change or is this some weird set in stone type thing?

[Arrrgh]

Ask them how they plan to prevent the largest guild from always winning. Did you not play Shadowbane? That's what ruined it. The largest guild won. And once it started winning more people joined it and it became unstoppable and ruined that server for any other guilds. So in Conan is there any point in being in a guild other than the largest one on the server?

[Der Helm]

So I have to ask the Germans and others dealing with a censored Conan: surely you can vote that sort of stuff out, right? It's not really the fault of the business so much as these draconian censorship laws. Is there going to reach a tipping point where the global Boomer population dies off and the laws change or is this some weird set in stone type thing?

Acutally our politicians are pushing agendas to make the laws even stricter, because, you know, video games make people kill other people.

And, because, parents should not be made responsible for the fucked up offsprings they have. God, I hate people ...


You can already tell that I will become a school teacher one day, can't you ? 

[Modern Angel]

Sure, we get some of that in the States, too. Standard 'children can't control themselves, blame  (insert media here)' garbage. But I'm asking why not vote for people who aren't so hardcore for censorship? Or is it a platform across all parties due to war memories? And if it is all bound up in the postwar German psyche is there reason to believe it will change as those memories of WWII fade with time?

[CharlieMopps]

Ask them if they will be ready AT LAUNCH to deal with Gold Farming, Gold Sellers, in-game spam from those sellers, money dupes and everything that goes into destroying an economy. Rather than the usually approach of "Oh, we wont have that in our game, lets not plan for it." And the inevitable disaster that follows as the devs scramble to find some halfassed temporary fix. ITS NOT THAT HARD TO PREVENT!!! Plan on it before release and it will never be a problem.

I bet you he says something like "We've designed the game to not be money centric, this will not be a problem for us" Then just start laughing uncontrollably and say "Charlie Mopps is going to quote you in his sig along with a link to GMworker.com about 3 weeks after launch"

[Der Helm]

Sure, we get some of that in the States, too. Standard 'children can't control themselves, blame  (insert media here)' garbage. But I'm asking why not vote for people who aren't so hardcore for censorship? Or is it a platform across all parties due to war memories? And if it is all bound up in the postwar German psyche is there reason to believe it will change as those memories of WWII fade with time?

While we have  quite a few influential political parties in germany, the problem is that there really is no one who is a pro-gaming/anti-censorship. At least that I know off.

As far as I understand our law, btw, as long as there is a secure age confirmation technique available (payment by credit card. hello!) no publisher would have to expect any legal hassle.

It is, literary ... for the children (younger than 18)

Should they get banned, all that would happen be that they were not allowed to advertise in public, but I have not seen that many MMO TV/magazine adds over here anyway.

Fuckers.

Damm, this stuff makes me angry.

[CharlieMopps]

While we have  quite a few influential political parties in germany, the problem is that there really is no one who is a pro-gaming/anti-censorship. At least that I know off.

Niether do we.

As far as I understand our law, btw, as long as there is a secure age confirmation technique available (payment by credit card. hello!) no publisher would have to expect any legal hassle.

I think the argument would be, that they are looking out for kids with bad parents

Should they get banned, all that would happen be that they were not allowed to advertise in public, but I have not seen that many MMO TV/magazine adds over here anyway.

Er... that's it? Then why would anyone even bother to comply?

Damm, this stuff makes me angry.

Me to.  If your kids plays a video game in which he lops off heads... and than actually lops off someones REAL head... we need to get that out of the way while their young, cause they're going to grow up to do a LOT stupider stuff later.

[Chenghiz]

The difference is that the USA has a historical policy (growing ever more lax, to be sure) that frowns upon censorship whereas, insomuch as I know, Germany does not.

[LC]

Ask  him about the god dammend "servers determinates avaible content (blood/boobies etc.) by client IP" stuff. That could be THE  game breaker for me. And I do not think I am alone.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. There is a 99.9% chance that you can just modify the client to get them back. It's not like the bare breast textures are going to be stored on the server. It's also very unlikely that the server will send instructions for the client to (not) display blood.

Something is telling me AoC will suck anyway.

[Nerion]

Show will be coming on shortly, 1 hour from this post

[Salamok]

The difference is that the USA has a historical policy (growing ever more lax, to be sure) that frowns upon censorship whereas, insomuch as I know, Germany does not.

You are forgetting the rating system that encourages publishers to censor themselves.  While I would like to see AOC just go for the M rating that isn't likely to happen, maybe we can get a liesure suit larry type of trivia test at logon and make everyone happy.

[Aez]

Listening right now.  The intro is painfull, the host replied a drooling cool two time in a row... I think I'll wait for the transcript. 

[Nerion]

Im stoked the guy stayed on the air with us an extra hour, that was awesome of him. Other than that I think everything went very well. We will have a download available at uberguildsradio.com of the whole thing in several hours...

[Nerion]

It is now up... www.uberguildsradio.com

[Rendakor]

Any chance of a transcript going up any time soon? I'm at work so listening isnt an option atm...

[Nerion]

The interview went for an hour and a half. While that is good it also means its gonna be a bitch to transcript. I will try to do it tomorrow though but if you can dowload the show and listen to it beforehand that would probably be best.

[Rendakor]

Ahh, fair enough. Dont bother on my account then, I'll listen to it when I get home.

[CharlieMopps]

I took notes:

Is it fun - yes, he thinks so
What are you doing to make sure the client doesn't lag out in large battles - fog of war
What are you doing about 3rd party progs - blah blah blah, securing the client
How long will pvp last - We don't know - arbitrary number... we don't know
How is the pace - slightly slower than wow
are stats gear based? - Primarily "Feat" based. Gear is for defense.
Crowd control - Immunity timer system (ala DAOC) not diminishing returns. No specific class is crowd control specific. All have some ability.
Crafting - He doesn't know much about it. Based off crafting quests that result in patterns. A lot yet to be determined.
Is PVP required? - He was wishy washy... but yes. There's a WOW type area, and a "shadowbane" type area. Sounds like the shadowbane area is the endgame.
DPS PVP questions - Potions of varying quality are important for mitigating dps for all classes. All healing is Heal over time. So you are trying to beat your opponents DPS with your healing potions. There are different types of potions, you can stack different types but not 2 of the same types.
Blood money - you get it for killing players that have been going around taking out other players. The money is a bonus for stuff like that. You keep up your endgame items with it. Housing, mounts, etc...


Sieging - There is no war declarations. You can change rotation time that you are vulnerable, you get more rewards for shorter rotations.
You can construct objectives like gatehouses, etc... the person that controls this the longest will probably win. The ticketing system is complex. The damage remains after the siege. No max players for sieges. If you still have control of your castle/fort/etc... you can spawn there after death. If you lose control, you spawn at your next closest control point. Planning spawn points is important prior to battle. There are build timers, but they are relatively short. You can upgrade structures to provide more cover and make them stronger. Open PVP unless they are in your group/raid/guild. There are PVP raid groups. You can't kill your own guildmembers unless you get a contract from another guild. The PVP zones are level restricted to level 40+

buffing in raids - most buffs are team propagated. Cast buff, it goes to the whole group but not the raid.

Guilds - Not sure if there is a size cap but probably large guild sizes. Smaller guilds can participate in pvp via the mercenary system. They put a lot of hooks in the code so they can track lots of data on guilds and what-not. Not sure how much will be available yet, they are still weighing cost effectiveness.

Mercenaries - contract based. You get paid if you show up... but if you do a bad job the guild hiring you may not do so again. Mercenaries are temp guild members.

Role-playing - RP servers will be PVP to start. They may add PVE, not sure yet. Its all based on demand (start bitching now if you want it)

Lich class- Magic is defined by range. Liches use closed ranged magic classes.

Mature rating - Europe and USA game are identical. They are ignoring Germany

[Oban]

Thank you for the summary Charlie, saved me from using my "I am deaf you insensitive clod" lie.

It really looks as thought they have a lot of work and planning that has not been completed as of yet.  Shouldn't most of these items, crafting for example, have been thought out before code was even written...  You know, in a design document?

[CharlieMopps]

Thank you for the summary Charlie, saved me from using my "I am deaf you insensitive clod" lie.

It really looks as thought they have a lot of work and planning that has not been completed as of yet.  Shouldn't most of these items, crafting for example, have been thought out before code was even written...  You know, in a design document?

It sounded like the guy they interviewed was in charge of the PVP stuff... its not that the crafting stuff wasn't done, he just didn't know personally. Also, it sounded like they have the majority of the major mechanics done, but none of the tweaking (ala, the smithing hammer will work up to level 10? or level 20?) Sounds as if they need a lot more beta testers to define the numbers for them.

[Arrrgh]

Guilds - Not sure if there is a size cap but probably large guild sizes. Smaller guilds can participate in pvp via the mercenary system. They put a lot of hooks in the code so they can track lots of data on guilds and what-not. Not sure how much will be available yet, they are still weighing cost effectiveness.

He's not even sure if there's a cap? Glad to see they've given this so much thought.

The largest guild will just hire up the mercenaries. Sounds like you can either be in the largest guild, be a merc company for the largest guild, or be crushed. Take your pick.

[CharlieMopps]

again, he was the PVP guy. He personally didn't know if there was a cap. That doesn't mean they don't have one or if the company has decided or not.