<font color="#ff0000" size="4">Apparently they're actually working hard to make it good. I'm kind of impressed at this turn around since the old Game Director quit.</font>
<div class="header"><h1>Age of Conan: Update 3.0 Interview</h1><h2>MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood had the opportunity to sit downwith Funcom's Erling Ellingsen to talk about the most recent majorupdate to Age of Conan that hit the live servers today. In theinterview, Ellingson tells us a little bit about combat changes,improvements to tradeskills, PvP changes and more!</h2></div> <table border="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>What was the team hoping to accomplish with this new update?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Westarted introducing the new PvP system in the last update, and wewanted to finalize it in this one. So that was certainly a big focusfor us. The notoriety system is a major addition the gameplay in Age ofConan, and I think this will open a whole new world of opportunitiesfor those inclined to get involved in PvP. We also wanted to improve ontradeskills, introduce culture armor and start making some changes tothe combat system. The update is simply huge, but the highlight isundoubtedly the PvP additions!</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Solet's touch a little bit on each of these individually. Can you give usan overview of the new PvP system now that it is completely rolled out?What does it add to the game?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>ThePvP consequence system will punish players who kill other weak andinnocent players. If you kill a so-called innocent player you will geta criminal status, and you will accumulate murder points. If youaccumulate enough murder points you will be flagged as a murderer,basically making you an outcast of society.</p> <p>Murdererswill be attacked by city guards and will be unable to trade with normalvendors. Instead, murderers will have to seek out renegade vendors onthe fringes of society! You can absolve yourself of murder points in anumber of ways: just waiting it out as it fades over time, earningregular experience, and performing redemption quests. Other playerswill want to hunt murderers down as killing a murderer increases PvPexperience gained by one hundred percent! PvP experience is now veryvaluable, as we introduced PvP levels and PvP specific gear in the lastupdate. There is a lot more detail to this system, of course, and wewill be putting up an article on the official community site explainingeverything in detail.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Ok,let's talk a little bit about tradeskills and crafting. In a recentreview here at MMORPG.com, the AoC crafting system was criticized forbeing rather weak. How does this update address that?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Thisupdate brings several changes to tradeskills, but this is only thebeginning. We will be looking even more into tradeskills going forward,and we are very keen on improving it further. What this update does ismake crafting more enjoyable by introducing several different changesand additions. First off, we are bringing in new types of armor andweapons, called "Base", "Culture" and "City". This gives smiths a lotmore to craft and the recipes for these items also include newresources that alchemists, skinners, weavers and woodcutters will haveto provide, so working together with other player crafters andgatherers will become both encouraged and necessary. We are also makingnumerous changes to resource drop-rates (making it easier to gatherresources), and the alchemy profession is getting a significantoverhaul by having their number of recipes reduced and also making lessresources necessary. This will generally make alchemy much moreenjoyable. This is by no means the "miracle update" for tradeskills -we will of course continue to improve this feature in the time ahead.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>We've been hearing about culture armor for a while now. What is that exactly?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Culturearmor is a new type of armor we are introducing into the game, in aneffort to both make tradeskills more interesting -and- to get morecontent in there. We are releasing 24 recipes in this update, eachrecipe making three pieces of armor in a set. Each class will get oneculture armor set they can use, and everything is based on variousHyborian cultures. They look stunning, and are designed clearly withthat culture's unique fashion in mind. All culture armor is intendedfor high-level players, and in terms of stats they fall somewherebetween dungeon-dropped blues and same-level epics. Culture armor willhave to be crafted by players, and the recipes are dropped by bossmobs. We plan to add even more culture armors in future updates. Alsonote that we are introducing culture weapons in this update as well.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="middle" colspan="2">
<p>
</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Your team is making a number of changes to the game's innovative combat system. Can you tell us how combat will be different?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Firstof all we have done major changes to crowd control and immunities,allowing players to break stuns, fears, roots, snares and charms whenthey have lost a certain amount of health. We did this in order to giveplayers a fair chance to whithstand these effects and fight back.Secondly, we have done some changes to some of the combos. What we havedone is make some of them have fewer steps, for instance making themmore viable for use in PvP. So while there are now many combos that areshorter, they also deal less damage of course. We have also introduceda penalty for when you miss with your directional combo strikes, andthe penalty will increase with the number of missed strikes. This isdefinitely something we will keep our eyes on closely, and we willcertainly track how these changes are received in the community.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Howdifferent is the game today from the game a month after launch? If Ileft the game after my initial month, why is it worth my time and moneyto come back?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Thisis certainly a biased answer, but I will give it to you anyway: it isdefinitely worth it to come back if you haven't been playing for awhile! We have made a huge number of improvements to the game in thepast few months, from major gameplay additions to countless littletweaks and fixes. There has also been radical improvements to technicalstability (such as memory leaks). While we certainly have many thingsleft to do before we are satisfied, we are still really happy about theprogress we have made. I have spoken to many players about what theyfeel about the progression, and most of them tells me that the game hasimproved radically since one month after launch. But this is only thebeginning, we are working relentlessly on future updates and we areputting a strong emphasis on player feedback when doing so. Of courseyou should rather ask a player this question. Better yet, I encouragepeople to pick their character back up and give it a try. I think theywill be pleasantly surprised, even though there is still a lot ofimprovements left to be done.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Okay, last question. What is on the immediate horizon for Age of Conan?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Rightnow we are looking very much forward to the upcoming content update.This will include Ymir's Pass - a gigantic new outdoor adventure regionintended for level 55 characters and above - as well as the legendaryAmphitheater dungeon. We really believe this will introduce countlessmore hours of content for players, and the feedback we have beengetting from players on the testlive server is very promising. We arealso working on tier 2 and 3 PvP armor - armor that looks beyondstunning and will be sure to appropriately show of your status as a PvPgod. We are also working on new high-level dungeons and a new adventurearea for Tarantia City. Our techies continues they work on DirectX 10,as well as working on even further improvements to stability.</p> <p>GenerallyI would say the future of Conan is very promising. The game has matureda lot in the past few months, and we strongly believe it will only getbetter. We have had a few rocky months and we know that there areissues we need to iron out, content that needs to be added and playerconcerns that must be addressed. We very much appreciate everyone'spatience, and we're very happy to have our players with us as we keepmaking Age of Conan a better and better game with each update we putout. We look forward to seeing how this latest update is received inthe community, and we look even more forward to push out future updates!</p></td></tr></tbody></table>
<div class="header"><h1>Age of Conan: Update 3.0 Interview</h1><h2>MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood had the opportunity to sit downwith Funcom's Erling Ellingsen to talk about the most recent majorupdate to Age of Conan that hit the live servers today. In theinterview, Ellingson tells us a little bit about combat changes,improvements to tradeskills, PvP changes and more!</h2></div> <table border="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>What was the team hoping to accomplish with this new update?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Westarted introducing the new PvP system in the last update, and wewanted to finalize it in this one. So that was certainly a big focusfor us. The notoriety system is a major addition the gameplay in Age ofConan, and I think this will open a whole new world of opportunitiesfor those inclined to get involved in PvP. We also wanted to improve ontradeskills, introduce culture armor and start making some changes tothe combat system. The update is simply huge, but the highlight isundoubtedly the PvP additions!</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Solet's touch a little bit on each of these individually. Can you give usan overview of the new PvP system now that it is completely rolled out?What does it add to the game?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>ThePvP consequence system will punish players who kill other weak andinnocent players. If you kill a so-called innocent player you will geta criminal status, and you will accumulate murder points. If youaccumulate enough murder points you will be flagged as a murderer,basically making you an outcast of society.</p> <p>Murdererswill be attacked by city guards and will be unable to trade with normalvendors. Instead, murderers will have to seek out renegade vendors onthe fringes of society! You can absolve yourself of murder points in anumber of ways: just waiting it out as it fades over time, earningregular experience, and performing redemption quests. Other playerswill want to hunt murderers down as killing a murderer increases PvPexperience gained by one hundred percent! PvP experience is now veryvaluable, as we introduced PvP levels and PvP specific gear in the lastupdate. There is a lot more detail to this system, of course, and wewill be putting up an article on the official community site explainingeverything in detail.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Ok,let's talk a little bit about tradeskills and crafting. In a recentreview here at MMORPG.com, the AoC crafting system was criticized forbeing rather weak. How does this update address that?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Thisupdate brings several changes to tradeskills, but this is only thebeginning. We will be looking even more into tradeskills going forward,and we are very keen on improving it further. What this update does ismake crafting more enjoyable by introducing several different changesand additions. First off, we are bringing in new types of armor andweapons, called "Base", "Culture" and "City". This gives smiths a lotmore to craft and the recipes for these items also include newresources that alchemists, skinners, weavers and woodcutters will haveto provide, so working together with other player crafters andgatherers will become both encouraged and necessary. We are also makingnumerous changes to resource drop-rates (making it easier to gatherresources), and the alchemy profession is getting a significantoverhaul by having their number of recipes reduced and also making lessresources necessary. This will generally make alchemy much moreenjoyable. This is by no means the "miracle update" for tradeskills -we will of course continue to improve this feature in the time ahead.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>We've been hearing about culture armor for a while now. What is that exactly?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Culturearmor is a new type of armor we are introducing into the game, in aneffort to both make tradeskills more interesting -and- to get morecontent in there. We are releasing 24 recipes in this update, eachrecipe making three pieces of armor in a set. Each class will get oneculture armor set they can use, and everything is based on variousHyborian cultures. They look stunning, and are designed clearly withthat culture's unique fashion in mind. All culture armor is intendedfor high-level players, and in terms of stats they fall somewherebetween dungeon-dropped blues and same-level epics. Culture armor willhave to be crafted by players, and the recipes are dropped by bossmobs. We plan to add even more culture armors in future updates. Alsonote that we are introducing culture weapons in this update as well.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="middle" colspan="2">
<p>
</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Your team is making a number of changes to the game's innovative combat system. Can you tell us how combat will be different?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Firstof all we have done major changes to crowd control and immunities,allowing players to break stuns, fears, roots, snares and charms whenthey have lost a certain amount of health. We did this in order to giveplayers a fair chance to whithstand these effects and fight back.Secondly, we have done some changes to some of the combos. What we havedone is make some of them have fewer steps, for instance making themmore viable for use in PvP. So while there are now many combos that areshorter, they also deal less damage of course. We have also introduceda penalty for when you miss with your directional combo strikes, andthe penalty will increase with the number of missed strikes. This isdefinitely something we will keep our eyes on closely, and we willcertainly track how these changes are received in the community.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Howdifferent is the game today from the game a month after launch? If Ileft the game after my initial month, why is it worth my time and moneyto come back?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Thisis certainly a biased answer, but I will give it to you anyway: it isdefinitely worth it to come back if you haven't been playing for awhile! We have made a huge number of improvements to the game in thepast few months, from major gameplay additions to countless littletweaks and fixes. There has also been radical improvements to technicalstability (such as memory leaks). While we certainly have many thingsleft to do before we are satisfied, we are still really happy about theprogress we have made. I have spoken to many players about what theyfeel about the progression, and most of them tells me that the game hasimproved radically since one month after launch. But this is only thebeginning, we are working relentlessly on future updates and we areputting a strong emphasis on player feedback when doing so. Of courseyou should rather ask a player this question. Better yet, I encouragepeople to pick their character back up and give it a try. I think theywill be pleasantly surprised, even though there is still a lot ofimprovements left to be done.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="blue buff_5">MMORPG.com:</div> </td> <td> <p>Okay, last question. What is on the immediate horizon for Age of Conan?</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" nowrap="nowrap"> <div class="grey buff_5">Erling Ellingsen:</div> </td> <td> <p>Rightnow we are looking very much forward to the upcoming content update.This will include Ymir's Pass - a gigantic new outdoor adventure regionintended for level 55 characters and above - as well as the legendaryAmphitheater dungeon. We really believe this will introduce countlessmore hours of content for players, and the feedback we have beengetting from players on the testlive server is very promising. We arealso working on tier 2 and 3 PvP armor - armor that looks beyondstunning and will be sure to appropriately show of your status as a PvPgod. We are also working on new high-level dungeons and a new adventurearea for Tarantia City. Our techies continues they work on DirectX 10,as well as working on even further improvements to stability.</p> <p>GenerallyI would say the future of Conan is very promising. The game has matureda lot in the past few months, and we strongly believe it will only getbetter. We have had a few rocky months and we know that there areissues we need to iron out, content that needs to be added and playerconcerns that must be addressed. We very much appreciate everyone'spatience, and we're very happy to have our players with us as we keepmaking Age of Conan a better and better game with each update we putout. We look forward to seeing how this latest update is received inthe community, and we look even more forward to push out future updates!</p></td></tr></tbody></table>
