Massive update (PvP in June)

[Falconeer]

Apparently.

Funcom and Eidos announce massive evolution plans for Age of Conan

Massive PvP update in June – New areas and dungeons – Powerpoints and Guild Alliance warfare to come

Durham, USA – June 13, 2008 – After the incredible initial success for Age of Conan, a whole world of MMO players are eagerly anticipating the future plans for one of the most popular online games ever released. While Age of Conan has already evolved massively since launch, numerous expansive additions are yet to come. Funcom and Eidos are therefore proud to lift the veil on Age of Conan’s promising future, and today the two companies reveal selected features which are now in production.

"While we have enjoyed the initial success for Age of Conan, we know that a solid launch is but the start when it comes to the MMO genre,” said Gaute Godager, Game Director on Age of Conan. ”As we look ahead we are preparing a huge amount of new content, and what we are presenting today will evolve Age of Conan even further. It’s naturally an incredibly ambitious update plan for a live MMO game, but we are certain our players would want nothing less.”

Without further ado, here are some of the cool things to expect in the months to come:

PvP evolved – To the Death

The great combat system in Age of Conan has taken MMO fighting to a new level of fun, and Player versus Player combat plays a major part in this. As a result, a massive new PvP update is planned for late June. Aptly called To the death, this update brings more consequence and rewards to PvP, and an important part of it is the Fugitive system. The more lower level players you kill, the easier it is for others to hunt you down. In addition, ten PvP levels with additional ranks will be introduced, as well as specific gear and weapons for PvP.

Guild Alliance Warfare

Preproduction has started on a MASSIVE free update which will come later this year. Currently titled "Kingship!”, large clusters of guilds will be able to form alliances, and rule and conquer on a massive scale. Everyone in a guild alliance will play a part in this system, and together they can even erect unique looking alliance Battlekeeps. The alliances can also fight over, and build, culture-specific "wonders of the world”, with a direct link to higher powers! As part of the system Funcom will also facilitate larger amounts of players in massive battles.

Powerpoints

This fall, a unique reward and character evolution system called Powerpoints will be introduced. This rewards active in-game behavior, and allows for gathering points through numerous methods, including owning a Battlekeep, playing the end-game at level 80, winning PvP matches, or simply being an active guild member or subscribing to the game. There will be many ways to obtain Powerpoints, and numerous rewards, ranging from exclusive Powerfeats to weapons, armor and potions. Powerpoints may even allow you to level faster!

New areas and dungeons

You won’t need to wait for an expansion pack to explore exciting new areas. In the next period, Funcom will include several new areas, as well as evolving already existing areas. This includes a brand new dungeon in Aquilonia, reshaping three dungeons in Stygia, and an entire mountain range in Cimmeria!

Improved player-made villages and Battlekeep systems

While the guild alliance system brings a whole new level to the game, Funcom will continue to expand the existing player-made areas and the systems running them. A focus on evolving the massive elements of the game even further continues, ranging from placing NPC’s in the cities to more choices and benefits.

Social updates

An MMO is nothing without a good social scene. While Conan is all about crushing your enemies, social enhancements are also getting some love. A fun example is the combo-based dancing system which is now coming to the game, and it’s entirely motion captured by professional dance artists.

More adventures

Age of Conan has received tremendous praise for immersion and the great voice-over quests. This is but the start of the adventure, and numerous new quests are coming into the game, spread across the entire world and across the level ranges. Soon 60 additional quests will also get full voice acting, further improving immersion.

Embracing community feedback Since launch several enhancements and fixes have been implemented to Age of Conan, and Funcom has continuously staffed up the service departments to improve customer satisfaction. This has already resulted in a better game experience, but the work will continue. At the heart of all of this stands the Age of Conan community. A lot of the upcoming improvements to the game will be based directly on community feedback, and the wishes and concerns players have when it comes to the future of the game will always be taken into account.

By reading the community websites, official forums and the monthly Clan of Conan newsletter you can expect additional information about upcoming features and released updates, as well as an arena to give your feedback. A new Clan of Conan newsletter is also going live today, with more detail on the upcoming features. http://funcom.cachefly.net/WebFiles/Newsletter/Issue17/

[Lakov_Sanite]

My first reaction was going to be something negative but I can always save that. I will say however I am looking forward to the new PP grind, it sounds like a great and original way to gain special abilities and pvp weapons/armor and I am eagerly anticipating this new guild alliance warfare as well, afterall it's always fun to need 100 more people to accomplish things, gives a real sense of community. Finally it just tickles me pink that In the coming months they will be fixing regular guild warfare and villages because while it was promised at release, we all know how stressful these things are, take your time funcom.

[Venkman]

ten PvP levels with additional ranks will be introduced

10 levels that span the 80 in some form? Or ten additional levels? Or something completely separate, like AAXP from EQ1? Anyone know at this point besides Funcom (assuming they do)?

[Falconeer]

Judging by the ingame interface, I'd say 10 PvP levels completely unrelated to your PvE levels.
Honestly, that sounds like Honour Points in disguise to talk in WoW terms. But I remember a similar system being in early Anarchy Online too. So nothing major, still it's nice to have something new to speculate about.

[Draegan]

Source

PvP consequences – the fugitive system

No longer will evil misdeeds go unpunished. Of course, Hyboria is ruthless and barbaric so don’t expect anyone to deal out justice just because someone smacks you about with a very heavy axe, but some justice is actually now being introduced to the world.

This is where the fugitive system comes in, presented in a set of colors defining your fugitive status – from blue to orange and eventually the deadly red.

Everyone is by default classified as “blue”, but your actions as a player killer will affect your fugitive rating. If you kill someone way under your level, you will notice that you will very quickly move to red. So will actions such as killing someone repeatedly, or other general unfairness. The more serious the crime, the quicker you rise in fugitive.

Obtaining red status will be quite painful to you. This means that other players can kill you without rising in fugitive level, and if they manage to kill you while you have red fugitive you will actually drop one of your better items and gold that they can loot!

Of course, turning red will be a double-edged sword. Sure, it will get you a lot of attention and many will probably see you as a danger to be avoided. But at the same time, people will hunt you down for your items and your gold so be very, very careful!

Pretty clever anti-gank mechanism.

[Slayerik]

Item loot FTW!

[Venkman]

Nice idea. I always get worried with "chance to drop an item" stuff though. These are very item-centric games. Unless their crafting system yields items of worth merely relative to pre-Trammel UO (where if you lost it is was just a craft away from replacement), this will devolve into something like the below, probably in this order:

Only stuff in your inventory (so players will keep it clean)
Only stuff you don't mystically bind in some form (so players just bind everything)
Only an item you can't wear/use (see #1)
Only an item you choose to give up (see #1)
Only... ah, heck, we're removing this "feature" and just making it cash

[Viin]

It will be interesting to see how they handle the item drop. It sounds like it'll be a high 'meta level' item randomly from your inventory or what you have equiped. (You have to do both, otherwise people will remove everything right before they die or not have anything in your inventory as you say). The only way around it would be to run around naked, which would be amusing too.

I think I will have to start leveling my RP-PVP alt here soon ..

Btw, has anyone tried the PvP arenas at all?

[Tarami]

I wonder how they're thinking that will work with the insane amounts of AoE in Conan and being indirectly griefed by low-levels as you're fighting mobs. Hi Tempest, I'll go stand a bit in your lightning storm, then I'll come gank you with my main when you've turned red.

[Falconeer]

I think I will have to start leveling my RP-PVP alt here soon ..

Btw, has anyone tried the PvP arenas at all?

I am doing that too right now. RL friends or not, I have my lev. 80 in their guild. Now it's time to get serious and do the PvP way.

Arenas by the way (minigame) are funny and so pointless that your nails will bleed.
They give you a good primer of what will come and a good chance to get your feet wet with formations, line of sight issues, collision detection and such. You can call it a PvP tutorial if you want, or a gym, but interest doesn't stick with these gimped down battlegrounds (which were the suck anyway).

[Brogarn]

I wonder how they're thinking that will work with the insane amounts of AoE in Conan and being indirectly griefed by low-levels as you're fighting mobs. Hi Tempest, I'll go stand a bit in your lightning storm, then I'll come gank you with my main when you've turned red.

That would piss me off, but it would definitely add another bit of craftiness to the game. Gotta watch your surroundings not only for those that would gank you, but those that would be ganked by you in order to screw you over. Also seems to me that there should be a time limit on the red name bit. Like if you don't gank anyone for a couple of weeks, you go orange and so on. Sort of like a timeout redemption period or something. Maybe not. I'm just trying to think of ways that someone who's a victim of Tarami's example could redeem themselves without negating the point behind the red name thing to begin with. In other words, Mr. Ganker shouldn't be allowed to go back blue by slaying 200 bunnies to feed the local orphanage. That seems too easy and immediate.

[schild]

The success of half of the shit in this newsletter completely depends on how active the border kingdoms are. Assuming every guild on every server is mostly alts, it's highly probable that even though we have the 5th largest guild on Zug, that all the other guilds are in the same position with only 40-50 actual unique members. As such, there might have been a bit too much focus places on, well, you know. Finding other players.

[Tarami]

Most likely the fugitive status will decay over time. I'm imagining it's made something like "Added fugitive per gank = Your level - Target level" and then a banded scale (0-10 = blue, 20-60 = orange, 61+ = red and so on).

Actually, I'm thinking the whole grief thing could be solved by getting a short grace period once you hit red, like 30 minutes, which would leave you time to finish up and make a run for it. If you were let to get away initially, it'd be much harder to track you down later to gank you with his/her main or a friend's character, yet it would leave you vulnerable to people in general. Or something. :)

[Samwise]

Their fugitive system sounds familiar.  Didn't Lineage have something like that?

[Falconeer]

I'd say this is 99% the system in place in Lineage 2. I am sure there are differences but I can't think of any.

EDIT: Yes, here's one: in L2 becoming a fugitive isn't related to killing lower players. Whenever you assault someone (and your guild isn't at war with them) your karma starts going down the drain. L2 really discourages ganking in any form, and encourages organized PVP, be it sieges or guild warring.

[Threash]

How did it work there?

[schild]

They had an SOJ meter - System of Judgement. And uhhhh. You know, I can't be arsed to make an effort here. Keke.

[Falconeer]

Not that much lowbie ganking due to enormous world and slooow traveling so to gank lowbies you had to actively go looking for them, and because of the said system, you were actually going to find troubles too. But whoever did it, used to do it naked so without the risk of losing euip. Still, that was not so helping, because to amend from your red state you had to go grind mobs (lots), and to grind mobs you needed your full euip. And when you are grinding mobs (in a zone your level), and you are red, and people (your level) passes by you... usually you get to eat dirt.

So, I'd say it worked... too much in Lineage 2. That prevented not only ganking but free pvp too. I'd say Conan's is an advancement of that model and it will probably work very well.

[Brogarn]

Unfortunately, I'm finding it very intriguing. Which usually means I'll try it with way too high of hopes, get ganked during some quest I wanted to get done before going to work, get some smarmy poorly written tell from said ganker, be pissed off the rest of the day and quit when I get home.

Wow. I think I just talked myself out of it in a single post.

[schild]

Unfortunately, I'm finding it very intriguing. Which usually means I'll try it with way too high of hopes, get ganked during some quest I wanted to get done before going to work, get some smarmy poorly written tell from said ganker, be pissed off the rest of the day and quit when I get home.

Wow. I think I just talked myself out of it in a single post.

This is why I only PvE with totally controlled PvP.

[Slayerik]

Or try a RP-PVP server.

Aw hell, you guys are missing out on half the fun...for reals!

[Falconeer]

I just rolled on the euro rp-pvp. I'd love to join you Slayerik, but looks like playing on the NA server from EU is less easy than I thought.

[Bunk]

I'm finding it really funny that everyone is glossing over the fact that this is basically just the Dread Lord system. We all know how perfect and unexploited that was.

The item drop idea did give me flashes of AC Darktide though, where everyone carried around multiple packs full of usless but expensive loot to act as "drop items".

[Falconeer]

where everyone carried around multiple packs full of usless but expensive loot to act as "drop items".

Unless when Funcom says "you will actually drop one of your better items" they are referring to "equipped items"...

[shiznitz]

I wonder how they're thinking that will work with the insane amounts of AoE in Conan and being indirectly griefed by low-levels as you're fighting mobs. Hi Tempest, I'll go stand a bit in your lightning storm, then I'll come gank you with my main when you've turned red.

Yup. Sounds a bit like the UO criminal system. If I cast an AE spell on a mob and Bob McBob waltzed into it on purpose, I would turn grey and he could kill me and loot me dry with no consequence.  The only way I could get revenge would be to kill him while he was blue, thereby increasing my counter towards becoming red which meant that anyone could attack me with impunity.  If I turned red, I could wait X days to go blue again.

[Slayerik]

Don't cast Fire field :) l2play

[Tarami]

Don't cast Fire field :) l2play

That's completely uncalled for forum trolling.

[Slayerik]

Don't cast Fire field :) l2play

That's completely uncalled for forum trolling.

No, its a valid point. If you don't want to get caught like that...be aware of your surroundings. There is so much fucking handholding in games these days, to me it's refreshing when you basically have to use your head. Don't like it? Stay on your PvE server.

[Brogarn]

Don't like it? Stay on your PvE server.

That right there is the kind of attitude those that complain about FFA PvP'ers are talking about. This was a discussion of ramifications of that PvP system and you turned it into a "lrn2play carebear noob" flame. While I agree with you on the fact that you shouldn't cast AoE's unless you know damn sure your field of fire is clear, that kind of attitude is uncalled for.

[Tarami]

No, its a valid point. If you don't want to get caught like that...be aware of your surroundings. There is so much fucking handholding in games these days, to me it's refreshing when you basically have to use your head. Don't like it? Stay on your PvE server.

Yeah, and don't melee or play a ToS or ever use AoE when there's a lowbie nearby that can potentially ruin shit for you.

Here's the thing; why the heck should I have to care about not ganking suicidal lowbies? That's artificial bullshit. It doesn't help "PvP morals" at all.

[Slayerik]

Yeah, I'm an ass.

I'm usually so surrounded by so much PvE love here I get a little pissy at times. My last like 5 posts have pretty much been shit.

[schild]

Actually, your last 500 posts have pretty much been shit. You actually think some people are carebears when really we just hate design ramifications and changes based on a vocal minority that effect the gameplay of people who like professionally designed content more than CREATE UR OWN content. There's a reason I always have a REAL skill-based game (for example, MGO right now) to play along with an MMOG. It's because people of your kind that think FFA PVP is the shit are just the most untolerable fucking people in gaming.

I mean seriously, learn to play another instrument. You suck at this one.

Edit: By the way, if MMOG designers didn't take the short-sighted jackhammer approach to development, odds are none of these posts would have been made from either of us. Unfortunately, Funcom - like every other company, nearly - has decided to let the PvE game suffer due to imba in PVP. Which is, admittedly through no fault of you or I, THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT. Unfortunately, you seem to keep trying to validate it. Which means you do things like call me a carebear (which couldn't be further from the truth) and sit around validating such design decisions. Essentially, your entire minority needs to shut the fuck up and go away until developers can get their head out of the fucking sand.

[Slayerik]

No, its a valid point. If you don't want to get caught like that...be aware of your surroundings. There is so much fucking handholding in games these days, to me it's refreshing when you basically have to use your head. Don't like it? Stay on your PvE server.

Yeah, and don't melee or play a ToS or ever use AoE when there's a lowbie nearby that can potentially ruin shit for you.

Here's the thing; why the heck should I have to care about not ganking suicidal lowbies? That's artificial bullshit. It doesn't help "PvP morals" at all.

Na, TBH you are kinda right. It really all depends how it is implemented. If it is a 10 level range before penalty, there wont be any problems. The mobs will wipe out any would be griefers well before they got to you, unless they were damn dedicated and damn pissed at you about something.

Who knows, really. I wont really care if I turn orange on accident anyways. If you get griefed excessively, l2report maybe...who knows.

[Slayerik]

Actually, your last 500 posts have pretty much been shit. You actually think some people are carebears when really we just hate design ramifications and changes based on a vocal minority that effect the gameplay of people who like professionally designed content more than CREATE UR OWN content. There's a reason I always have a REAL skill-based game (for example, MGO right now) to play along with an MMOG. It's because people of your kind that think FFA PVP is the shit are just the most untolerable fucking people in gaming.

I mean seriously, learn to play another instrument. You suck at this one.

Edit: By the way, if MMOG designers didn't take the short-sighted jackhammer approach to development, odds are none of these posts would have been made from either of us. Unfortunately, Funcom - like every other company, nearly - has decided to let the PvE game suffer due to imba in PVP. Which is, admittedly through no fault of you or I, THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT. Unfortunately, you seem to keep trying to validate it. Which means you do things like call me a carebear (which couldn't be further from the truth) and sit around validating such design decisions. Essentially, your entire minority needs to shut the fuck up and go away until developers can get their head out of the fucking sand.

Had a decent response, but your edit got me.

Usually I try to be less like sinji, more like Hoax/Nija kinda guy...but something about FFA arguments get me going like the incredible fuckin hulk.

I'll chill a bit on the 'carebear' slinging and stuff.

EDIT: Jeez schildy, WTF does a guy gotta do around here for a grief title 

[schild]

You don't want to be like Nija. He's an exploitive, griefing jackass with a completely singular playstyle. If you want to be more like Hoax, go play spreadsheets in space.

But the problem is, you actually think I'm a carebear when I'm on a PvE server specifically because I want to BUILD A CITY AND THEN GO PVP IN THE BORDER KINGDOMS. I pvped as much as ANYBODY in SWG. I, in fact, built my entire city placement around easy access to PVP. But shortsighted design decisions fucked all of that up (I'm talking way prior to NGE).

Point being, you are indeed a generic frothing mouthbreather and need to tone that shit the fuck back. Also, cluebat, motherfucker.

Edit: We give grief titles to people we like and people we devestatingly hate, not one-note predictable white noise.