Interview with Age of Conan producer Gaute Godager

[Morat20]

You've got it for the most part.

Think of mass multiplayer games as stuff you'd do during recess in the 3rd grade. Would you like someone to invent something like football, dodgeball, baseball, or basketball? Would you rather see a new variation of red rover?

I think it's a waste of time to continue research down dry holes -- especially when the proponents of such research have no clue as to WHY the games they invented weren't fun. If you don't understand why people enjoy the things they enjoy, then how do you focus your energies on developing football and not on games like "Kick the tall kid in the nutsack"?

It's a bad analogy anyways. Everyone understands the nature of PvP -- players competing (directly) against other players, rather than AI. It's broadly implemented in a wide variety of ways (from an afterthought, to a core game component, or by building complex but parallel structures for it) in a wide variety of games. However, there's been a point of convergence -- both in PvE and PvP -- on minimal penalties for death.

There are some exceptions. It's worth studying both WHY players prefer weak death penalties and WHY some games are the exceptions to this. People who prefer to ignore the why end up producing failing games -- or bitching and moaning when their favorite game fails.

I've yet to see a game that succeeded BECAUSE of harsh PvE or PvP death penalties. I've seen games that succeeded despite them, and almost always because such penalties were accepted as a necessary component of game play. When heavy death penalties are NOT seen as necessary, it feels less like a game and more like a deliberate cockblock -- which people assume is there to get you to play longer and pay more. Who wants more game frustration so Producer X gets a bigger paycheck?

Edited to add: By "necessary component of game play" I don't really mean "It's the only game out, and it has it, so I have to put up with it". I'm specifically thinking EVE here, wherein it would strain suspension of disbelief (just as critical in games as movies) to have your ship blown up and then respawn with the stupid ship somewhere else. It got blown up. WoW, well, you're being brought back from the dead and half your stuff no one else can use anyways, so it's not surprising no one looted your crap. :)

Harsh death penalties have to fit very well into the game to be seen as anything other than a timesink and developer cockblock. EVE manages -- through a great deal of hard work -- and developers wanting 'more realistic' or 'more hardcore' PvP should take the right lessons from EVE. However, I sincerly doubt this will happen.

[Velorath]

Look at the quote.  Traditional "battleground-style" environments.  That was totally a WoW reference.

Unless you've played DAOC.

[Ezdaar]

The autolevel when attacked by someone higher sounds really interesting. Would be neat to make it randomly +/- 5 levels of the attacker's level so there is always a chance the attacker will end up being lower.

[Fargull]

I know a few guys who are gonna want to play this, and they'll want to play it on a PvP server.  I'll go with them, but I'm gonna be cranky if I have to lose items.

I thought you were a UO fanboi.

Anyway, liked the article.  Really interested in seeing where both this one and the little IP being developed by Mythic are heading.

[Trippy]

I know a few guys who are gonna want to play this, and they'll want to play it on a PvP server.  I'll go with them, but I'm gonna be cranky if I have to lose items.

I thought you were a UO fanboi.

He is, but he's one of those rare, near-mythical players that *liked* Trammel.

[Toast]

Playing Eve has really opened my eyes to what PVP can be in a MMO.

Some thoughts:

1. Open world pvp is good so long as there are core safe areas.

2. PVP/dangerous areas feature very, very nice rewards. PVE-centric players may be enticed here for the rewards, fully understanding the risks of pvp occuring

3. Prepared newbie characters / crafting spec'ed characters have means to escape nearly any "gank" situation.

4. Death penalties can be meaningful and fun. Items should be relatively easy to re-acquire, and carrying decent items should be a pre-req for strong pvp performance.

5. Unprovoked gankers should suffer meaningful penalties due to the general advantage in fights that they receive.

6. Level-based pvp will never be good.

7. PVP based on gear setups with counter moves and counter-counters can be very compelling.

Just some thoughts. I'm repeating a lot of familiar ideas here for sure.

[MrHat]

...While only guilded players will be able to contribute to the construction and maintenance of a town...

Danger! Danger!

[Pococurante]

More than that, though, player towns will also attract enemies. Monsters will begin hiving near player towns, creating a mirror town that will gradually be added to over time. Once the monster town grows large enough (after three or four weeks), it will start launching raids on player towns.

Only in their dreams.  The reality will be about as satisfying as UO's initial "closed ecology".  The best they can hope for is a bandit camp that lives just long enough until the first player to come upon it busts that pinata open.

[Azazel]

Look at the quote.  Traditional "battleground-style" environments.  That was totally a WoW reference.

Also, I smell the beginnings of 30-page uberthread greatness.  The SWG and UO threads are gone, let's get this one going.  :-D

I read that as "traditional" meaning CTF which has been in FPS games for roughly forever, and the "battleground-style" as pointing out what he's talking about to the people that haven't already been shooting one another in FPS games for years but are familiar with WoW's pvp. Like a couple of my EQ/WoW-playing friends, my wife, and so forth.

Also, I can't see this one going so far. The SWG one had heavyhitters brought in by people who had their hearts torn out when their one true love got a sexchange operation one morning. You need betrayal and pain and the spectrum of human emotional drama to get a thread up like that. This is just us bullshitting about something that may or may not be released one day.

The stuff Schild quoted way up there about the game seem great, but designers always talk a lot of good ideas when the game is in the design stage. When it's in Beta I'll start to consider being interested.

[Velorath]

I like the sound of Conan's bullshit better than Lord of the Rings Online or Vanguard's bullshit though.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, because when the author writes about a self-contained short-term PVP environment in an MMO and describes it as a "battleground" it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the most popular MMO in history has been marketing this exact same mechanic under the label "battlegrounds" for like a year and a half now.  It's sheerest coincidence that they used that precise word, and that they used it to describe precisely the same game mechanic.

/shrug

If you guys say so.

[Chenghiz]

And why exactly does it matter, anyway?

[WindupAtheist]

Beats me.

[Margalis]

AO was pretty cool in it's own way and it sounds like these guys have some level of genuine inspiration and some novel ideas.

LOTR has no inspiration or ideas at all other than "IT'S LORD OF THE RINGS MAN!!!"

I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to this but it seems to have a decent chance of being at least interesting.

[Azazel]

blah blah
If you guys say so.

I was talking moreso about the "traditional" part. But feel free to be recalcitrant.

[Triforcer]

Approximately how many nanoseconds after release will it take for someone to create a "galley slave" with offensive mannerisms?  Could be a problem.

[schild]

Well, they'll be playing the single player game first. So uhhh....It could be a while.

[Yegolev]

AO stank out the gate.  AO got worse before it got better.  How good is it now?
Longest Journey was full of good design if a tad buggy.  The sequel wouldn't even install on some people's machines.

You have been warned.

[Morfiend]

Approximately how many nanoseconds after release will it take for someone to create a "galley slave" with dark-toned skin to do a little offensive RPing?  I'd bet anything that name gets changed.

There was another review (from Gamespy) where the reviewer went through the first part of the single player game. Basically you start off as a slave on a ship, orsman (is that a word?) if your a male character, and "entertainment" if your female. And im not talking about strictly dancing entertainment. They said Conan is going to totally embrace the "M" rating. Infact I think "exotic dancer" is one of the professions you can choose at some point. Anyway. You are only a slave for about 5 minutes, and then you end up on a deserted beach. Still in singleplayer land.

[Margalis]

I for one think that is awesome - that is what I mean by really embracing the license and letting in be empowering rather than limiting. In Conan stories most of the women are harlots of some sort. It's an adult world. People get dismembered, eaten by giant slime creatures, torn about by flying demons, screwed then left hung out to dry.

It seems like these guys "get it" to some degree. It may end up being really bad but it at least sounds interesting rather than mundane. It has the potential to be good but also the potential to be different, and as the space gets more crowded and people play more of the same minor variations different is good.

[WindupAtheist]

I for one think that is awesome - that is what I mean by really embracing the license and letting in be empowering rather than limiting.

As opposed to "Okay, so it's like EQ/WoW/every other fantasy MMO in the world, but it says Lord of the Rings on it!  Holy shit, people love Lord of the Rings!  Did you see how much money those movies made?  Man, this is gonna rule!"

[Margalis]

Someone needs to take a picture of the WoW box then use MS Paint to scribble out "World of Warcraft" and scribble in "Lord of the Rings." Because that does seem to be their entire vision.

BECAUSE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY AS FRODO AND HANG OUT WITH GANDALF! MILLIONS!

[Merusk]

I for one think that is awesome - that is what I mean by really embracing the license and letting in be empowering rather than limiting. In Conan stories most of the women are harlots of some sort. It's an adult world. People get dismembered, eaten by giant slime creatures, torn about by flying demons, screwed then left hung out to dry.

Reading this thread made me go check out their forums.  Seems they're attracting an interesting crowd right now, particularly in regards to art design.  Plenty of the usual MMO crowd with lots of complaining about 'armor that doesn't cover you' in WoW as if they originated that visual theme.   Funny thing is Conan artwork is what cemented the 'chainmail bikini' style in my mind.

Reading what those of you who have actually read the books, combined with the movies (which also are cemented in people's minds) the chainmail bikini seems far more 'in-theme' than EQ2/ DAOC's "Real" armor.  They just need to apply it to females and males equally.  (Insert flashbacks to FF XI's male leather.)

[Dren]

(Insert flashbacks to FF XI's male leather.)

I didn't need that.  I'm still scarred from that brief amount of leveling past the need to use those.  I'm still amazed at the effect that had on me.  Something about staring at my male avatar's ass in that get-up for about a week (at my casual pace of leveling) may have had something to do with it.

[stray]

Funny thing is Conan artwork is what cemented the 'chainmail bikini' style in my mind.

If you're talking Frazetta, then you might be confusing "chainmail bikini" with "completely butt naked" (save for the occassional pantie bottom or armband here and there).

[HaemishM]

Yeah, because when the author writes about a self-contained short-term PVP environment in an MMO and describes it as a "battleground" it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the most popular MMO in history has been marketing this exact same mechanic under the label "battlegrounds" for like a year and a half now.  It's sheerest coincidence that they used that precise word, and that they used it to describe precisely the same game mechanic.

/shrug

If you guys say so.

The true MMOG origination was DAoC, to be precise. Traditional would seem to fit since WoW and I think AO used the same name as well.

[Fargull]

He is, but he's one of those rare, near-mythical players that *liked* Trammel.

Ahh, one of those EQ with Sprite guys...

[WindupAtheist]

ATTENTION F13.  In order to save myself a shitload of typing everytime someone trolls/derails a thread with this topic, I have taken the trouble to snap a couple screenshots and slap together an image I can use instead.

[MrHat]

to bring it back:

From the Conan website

Gameplay Preview #7 Prestige Classes and Guilds

- Apr 28, 2006
This week we take a deeper look at the Prestige class and guild systems in Age of Conan

First up a word from Game Director Gaute Godager on the subject of guilds and the Prestige classes on all the interest shown amongst the community.

"I thought I would write a section for you about the balance between guild- and solo play. This has generated a lot of heated debate on the forums, which is something we really do appreciate, honestly, and it does inspire us to make sure we get this balance right.

The core of the question is: can we give any advantage to social gameplay without affecting negatively some peoples’ perception of solo gameplay? I guess that is impossible. The problem is, I want to reward people for being social, without alienating the true image of Conan as a truly solo friendly game. I have thus decided on making a compromise for the social classes, the Prestige Classes as we call them. The compromise is to let all abilities be available for your social class, but simply in a somewhat weaker form. You are barred from nothing, but you can not reach your full potential.

Now then, the remaining question is: how much more powerful will the abilities be in a Guild? Is it 5%, 10% or 50%. To be honest, I don’t know yet. This is something we will find out during beta. There will be a difference though. Now on to the important parts..."

Guilds will be a very important part of Age of Conan and the Prestige class system allows players to provide benefits and improvements to their guild in a way not seen before in an MMO. This system allows players to be truly engaged in the well-being and strength of their guild like never before. Everyone will have a true interest in helping support and grow their guilds whilst also getting personal benefits along the way!

There are four prestige classes that players can choose from: Lord, Commander, Crafter or Master. Each brings something very different to the guild and players will have a real choice to make in terms of how they want to benefit their guild.

In this update we mention the four types of resources. Everyone can extract the four types: Gold Nuggets, Iron Ore, Wood and Stone. They are used for building houses in the Guild Villages, in the building of Battle Keeps in the Massive PvP areas and finally for Crafting. If you are guilded you get resource extraction bonuses which goes to a guild repository, and which can be used by everyone. If you are not in a guild, you must gather all your own resources.

Lord
The Lord offers guild management bonuses and extras. In general, they provide a discount and savings in how much it costs a guild to build and maintain a city. In turn, this reduces the overhead associated with player cities and improves the efficiency of the the guild’s resource collecting.

    * Has exclusive placement rights in regard to the main Keep.
    * Can build Guard Towers that automatically defend against enemy attacks.
    * Each Lord in a guild increases the resource extraction of gold nuggets for all guild members – up to a max of 30 Lords.
    * Each Lord in a guild increases the experience point bonus for all guild members – up to a max of 20 Lords.
    * Has access to the Architect and Alchemy crafting skills.


Commander
The Commander is the military brain of the guild. In practical terms, their usefulness is that they allow larger team sizes (up to ten people from the standard six) as well as improved formation bonuses and morale abilities on the battlefield.

    * Adds one additional maximum member to a team, up to a total of 10 (with 4 commanders).
    * Can build Barracks for the Village or Keep that will spawn soldiers to protect the village on attack.
    * Each Commander in a guild increases the resource extraction of iron ore for all guild members – up to a max of 30 Commanders.
    * Can draw up special “Tactical Plans” to enable Commander only formations. Massive battle formations, such as large mounted formations or the special Raid Attack resistant formations, are available only to the Commander.
    * Has access to the Weaponsmith crafting skill.

Crafter
Crafters are those making essential items and equipment needed for the guild to succeed in extended battles and harsh conditions. Supplying everything from siege engines to weapons, the Ccrafter will be the person keeping their friends and customers supplied with goods.

Crafting has its own tiered progression system with 20 ‘levels’ but it is not experience based. Each level will be attained through a quest. Items also come in five tiers of quality, with the highest tiers reserved for crafters with strong and resourceful guilds.

Players will be able craft outside of a guild, although they will restricted from the higher-level tiers unless they have access to their own guild crafting facilities.

    * Can build crafting premises, smithies, and other tradeskill facilities in the guild villages.
    * Each Crafter in a guild increases the resource extraction of wood for all guild members – up to a max of 30 of Crafters.
    * Has access to all forms of crafting.


Master
The Master receives a loyal follower who stands by their side and helps them. Whilst the their follower can fight, that is not their specialty and shouldn’t be relied on when the going gets tough. The follower’s true role is in the domain of collecting resources, as they can be set to collect resources for the guild when their master is offline.

    * Can have one “follower”. Being in a guild gives you access to more powerful followers.
    * Can build Stables which upgrade the quality of mounts.
    * Each Master in a guild will increase the resource extraction of stone for all guild members – up to a max of 30 Masters.
    * Has access to the Armorsmith crafting skill.


Each prestige class that exists in a guild will give benefits to the guild (on a 'per account' basis to prevent players bolstering their ranks with 'alt' characters—you may have alt characters, however only the prestige class of the first to join will benefit your guild.)

Players will be able to choose a prestige class outside of a guild, although they may not get the full benefits or have access to the best skills and abilities of their chosen path unless they are a member of a guild

This is an overview of the Crafting skills available in Conan:

Weaponsmith
As the name implies, a weaponsmith specializes in making various forms of weaponry for arming those he plans to support in battle. Using techniques passed down for generations, a smith trained in these arts can produce some of the most deadly weapons in Hyboria. In addition to creating arms, this smith may also supply various other forms of weapon enhancement materials, such as whetstones and polishes.

Armorsmith
Similar to the weaponsmith, the armorsmith focuses on crafting various pieces of protective gear in addition to ways to enhance said equipment. Having many avenues available to them in terms of advancement, the armorsmith may choose to provide a very wide variety of armor styles, ranging from leather to full plate.

Gemcutter
Taking advantage of the skills of the armor and weapon smiths, the gemcutter specializes in honing and crafting gems to decorate and enhance equipment. While some gems only have minor effects, others found in crypts or carried by those practicing darker arts may carry strange powers which can be harnessed by the gemcutter’s craft. As the gemcutter is familiar with working with a fresh set of armor or weaponry, they can also provide some more straightforward modifications such as counterweights or other reinforcement.

Alchemist
Trained in various pharmaceutical and metallurgical arts, the Alchemist specializes in creating various compounds with strange and seemingly unnatural effects. Utilizing both common and rare ingredients found around Hyboria, those trained in this art may provide many useful consumables to their allies for use both in and out of battle.

Architect
Concerned more with the “big picture” than simply making equipment or potions, the architect is set on designing the more impressive buildings and siege engines used to wage war in the Border Kingdoms and beyond. Carrying a great burden of responsibility to those he allies himself with, architects facilitate the design of cities as well as devices designed to protect his allies’ assets or destroy his enemy’s.

Some very nifty stuff in there, it's definitely piqued my interest the way SB did back in the day (before the horror...the horror...).

[Velorath]

Funny thing is Conan artwork is what cemented the 'chainmail bikini' style in my mind.

If you're talking Frazetta, then you might be confusing "chainmail bikini" with "completely butt naked" (save for the occassional pantie bottom or armband here and there).

Most of the time when I think of Conan artwork these days, I think of Barry Windsor-Smith's work on the early issues of Marvel's Conan comics.

[jpark]

The key to remember is that Anarchy Online had a lot of good ideas going for it at the time of it's release, but reformatting your hard-drive was not one of them.  That's what I will remember while I watch Conan's developement.

He has my interest, but not my faith.

Classic.

[Slayerik]

ATTENTION F13.  In order to save myself a shitload of typing everytime someone trolls/derails a thread with this topic, I have taken the trouble to snap a couple screenshots and slap together an image I can use instead.

*snipped pic*

If you can make an easy 100 bucks, or work hard for 100 bucks...which are you going to choose?

[Merusk]

Funny thing is Conan artwork is what cemented the 'chainmail bikini' style in my mind.

If you're talking Frazetta, then you might be confusing "chainmail bikini" with "completely butt naked" (save for the occassional pantie bottom or armband here and there).

Y'know.. I'm not really sure.  I'll have to google-up some stuff when I get home to find out. (image googling is never a good idea at work.)

[HaemishM]

So essentially, Age of Conan will hard-code in the need for a guild from anyone who wants to do PVP, as opposed to just making it a choice? AWESOME!

Forced grouping leads to forced groping.

[Slayerik]

So essentially, Age of Conan will hard-code in the need for a guild from anyone who wants to do PVP, as opposed to just making it a choice? AWESOME!

Forced grouping leads to forced groping.

Whats wrong with some GvG? Could you show up errant in Shadowbane to a bane of a city? Not fuckin likely. If you want some one on one, I am sure there will be arena/bar fights/open field PVP.