General Discussion

Craig Morrison, the new Game Director for Age of Conan has posted a lengthy outline of upcoming changes and updates for the game, including details on server merges, Ymir's Pass and the PvP update.

Today I wanted to take the opportunity to go over some of the updates, changes and developments you will see in the game over the coming weeks and months. Hopefully this will give you a little insight into what order things are being addressed in and what sequence you will see the new content arrive in.

There are two things on the immediate horizon that will very soon be on the test server for public testing in the shape of Ymir’s Pass and the second stage of the PVP update. There are a couple of things I want to address on these.

Firstly Ymir’s Pass is a large zone and has quite a bit of content to test. This may mean that it stays on the test server through several updates on live. We have the ability not to include a given playfield when we build new versions for live, which means that this testing won’t hold up the release of the other new content and Ymir’s Pass will still get the time on the test server that it needs. We want the experience to be as good as possible for its release and feel the public testing phase is important in that. We hope to be bringing the playfield to the test server shortly, and we all hope you will enjoy the many varied encounters it brings.

Then there is the second stage of the PVP update that brings with it the consequence system. This new system allows for players PVP actions to have real consequences in the world, and it will greatly enhance the entire PvP experience in Conan. As you know the system is meant to bring repercussions for repeated evil behaviour (i.e. killing players outside of your level range), so should you chose to “gank” other players, a whole new gameplay area opens up! For one, it will result in you no longer being welcome in many parts of the game-world, but in its place you will have to rely on a newly arrived network of camps and areas that function with a little more moral ambiguity. This is very true to the essence of the Conan lore, and a change I think many players will find intriguing.

Another aspect which has popped up in the forums recently is whether we are going to do a server merge or not, and I can today confirm that we are actively working on an approach to merge servers, both in Europe and North America. It’s important for us to ensure the best gameplay experience for you all, and more healthy populations on each and every server will make sure we maintain healthy communities for the game in the future. Still, there are many complexities involved in this, and we want to ensure that everything happens as fair and streamlined as possible. That work has now started, and we are naturally making sure that guilds and players can get to new servers in the best possible way. We will come back with more info on this, but I hope that this will serve as a positive injection to the social scene in the game.

Read more here.

What a breath of fresh air Craig Morrison brings to Age of Conan!

If you read the responses to Craig's post on the official forum, it's quite obvious that his efforts as well as his ability to focus on the specifics of what the player community want most is much appreciated by all.

The one nagging thing that bothers me is something he can't really do much about and that is how much time it will take to actually get Age of Conan to release quality.  Even DX-10 looks like a long way off.

Oh well, it's positive encouragement from the man in charge -- a true gamer, a guy who cares, a person who comes off as seriously caring about and listening to us who will do whatever it takes to help us make Age of Conan the MMO we know it can become.

Yep, too bad it is probably too late.  With all of AoC's regional servers I don't know how they will appropriately merge the servers.

Age of Conan needs 8 servers total not a merge into 24 from 49.

Chickens are Roosting. Game Over

Too little, too late.

Well, this is coming from someone who has become vehement in his hatred against Age of Conan, but this is some fresh air to me.

Ever since the game came out, the stuff I saw gradually got worse and worse, hell I remember reading about the Murderer system, which seemed completely out of place in Conan's lore. Yet now, it makes sense to me. I remember reading that it was just any player in general would get you points unless they were a criminal, and that when you become a murderer you are screwed unless your grind/wait. Now you are just forced outside of society. I dont know if that was planned before Gaute left, but oh well, I'm actually considering trying this game now lol

Edit: I do agree though, sadly this change was a little too late, four-five months seems too long to finally get the game on track. I may hate Funcom, but at least this guy seems smart though.

Originally posted by Cursedsei

Well, this is coming from someone who has become vehement in his hatred against Age of Conan, but this is some fresh air to me.

Ever since the game came out, the stuff I saw gradually got worse and worse, hell I remember reading about the Murderer system, which seemed completely out of place in Conan's lore. Yet now, it makes sense to me. I remember reading that it was just any player in general would get you points unless they were a criminal, and that when you become a murderer you are screwed unless your grind/wait. Now you are just forced outside of society. I dont know if that was planned before Gaute left, but oh well, I'm actually considering trying this game now lol

 

Edit: I do agree though, sadly this change was a little too late, four-five months seems too long to finally get the game on track. I may hate Funcom, but at least this guy seems smart though.

AoC could offer free money to people for signing back up -- it just isn't going to happen.  AoC is dead.

The new director is finaly turning AoC around and pointing it in the right direction.

Unfortunately, this should have happened 3 months ago, Funcom has spent 4 months constantly ignoring its customers, and concentrating their efforts into wide spread nerfing, instead of addressing the glaring issues in basic gameplay.

The steadily declining population has finaly forced them to take action, but as others have said, "too little, too late". They will fix the game, and it will probably be very enjoyable, but some folks already have a bad taste in their mouth concerning Funcom, it will take a massive effort on the developers part just to maintain the population they have now. Funcom will have to offer some mighty money losing promotions to get ex-players to even think about re-subbing. I know it would take at least a free month to get me to think about resubbing, I may even hold out until they offer some nice in-game goodies to sweeten the pot.

Bottom line: MMO developers pay attention; unloading a steaming pile on your customers, and then ignoring their suggestions and input is a sure fire way to lose your investment, just because past MMOs have been released buggy and incomplete, doesn't mean that the maturing gamers will except that type of crap now days. The genre has matured, and the players have matured, it is now time for MMO developers to mature as well.

Originally posted by corpsman77

Originally posted by Cursedsei

Well, this is coming from someone who has become vehement in his hatred against Age of Conan, but this is some fresh air to me.

Ever since the game came out, the stuff I saw gradually got worse and worse, hell I remember reading about the Murderer system, which seemed completely out of place in Conan's lore. Yet now, it makes sense to me. I remember reading that it was just any player in general would get you points unless they were a criminal, and that when you become a murderer you are screwed unless your grind/wait. Now you are just forced outside of society. I dont know if that was planned before Gaute left, but oh well, I'm actually considering trying this game now lol

 

Edit: I do agree though, sadly this change was a little too late, four-five months seems too long to finally get the game on track. I may hate Funcom, but at least this guy seems smart though.

 

AoC could offer free money to people for signing back up -- it just isn't going to happen.  AoC is dead.

 

 

Quite frankly, it's getting really *OLD* to hear people serving endless gallons of *WHINE* with their cheese singing the blues about how they got screwed when they bought the FunCom hype for Age of Conan. 

Too many of you, sadly, bought the FunCom sizzle (what Age of Conan can and will be) and got pissed off with the actual delivery -- the steak (what FunCom released as Age of Conan on 20 May 2008).

Okay, it's sad too many of you folks got sucked in to a game that, more than 5 months after release, is still a closed beta product.

But what's even more sad is the fact that many of you, in your ire, demonstrate the conviction to cut off your nose to spite your face -- not being able to see the potential about how great the Age of Conan MMO will be.

I say "will be" because, as bad as FunCom's track record has been, Craig Morrison's track record is solid, professional and successful.  Anyone who's followed his career (you just have to reflect on his achievements with Anarchy On Line) knows -- and has no doubt -- that Age