With the launch of Ten Ton Hammer's
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24948"
target="_blank">Ask the Devs feature, the forums
have been overflowing with questions that Age of Conan fans want
answered. Jason "Athelan" Stone has stepped up as Funcom representative
to answer those very questions. For those of you who like just the meat
and potatoes, we have compiled a list of this week's questions and
answers.
This week was a busy one! Athelan answered no less than 23 of our
readers questions. Here they are in summary:
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25111"
target="_blank">Khalathwyr asks: style="font-weight: bold;"> "Will we see more videos prior
to launch made in the manner of the
Combat training vid Erling is in that was released recently for other
systems like crafting, guilds (interface and functions) and bar
brawling?"
release
more "official" guide type movies but we also believe
heavily in our player community and machinima (sp) so don't want to
inundate the community with "official" stuff that players might be able
to taper a better guide for."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25106"
target="_blank">Melakor asks: "If being an
architect is your crafting profession, how will you make any in game
money from it?"
are
needed to build guild cities, there is no reason why
they could not be paid for their services, but it is obvious they are
not a consumer good oriented trade, they are more akin to their real
counterparts."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25074"
target="_blank">Melakor asks: "Just wondering how
many buildings a guild city can have? Can you have one of every type of
building? How many [building] "nodes" are there per plot of
land?"
not
going to get the specifics as everything is not the same in
each location or area. The area's as demo'd at GDC are quite large and
are static, and the total number of structures is quite sizable. The
"profession" nodes are the ones that have building options and you can
spread them out to get different types based on your needs.
This is one of those areas where players want to know everything, but
knowing even a little bit just spawns more questions, but we can't just
database dump everything in the game out there or people get upset when
it changes."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25072"
target="_blank">Freeze asks: "In an effort to help
control "ganking" on PvP servers and at the same
time immensely add to the risk vs reward aspect of PvP has there been
thought of making Levels invisible to other players?"
simply does not work as it breaks so many other aspects of the
game. Like grouping, guild recruiting etc. Besides you could still
identify the "level" of a person in UO based on their title. Just did
not know if it was 1x GM or 7x GM you were facing, and once you faced
them once you had a pretty good idea the next time."
href="Is%20it%20going%20to%20be%20possible%20to%20play%20with%20a%20controller%20at%20on%20on%20the%20PC%20version?"
target="_blank">Draxel asks
style="font-weight: bold;">: "Is it going to be possible to
play with a controller at on on the PC version?"
Controller still works and can be used to play the game."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24981"
target="_blank">ehds asks: "Will it be possible to
quest with my friends throughout the entire game if we choose different
races? If we are forced to split up for race/homeland specific questing
will
it be easy to quick travel back to them for neutral quests?"
not race specific, but location specific. If your Stygian
friend wants to come join you in Cimmeria and quest together you can."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24984"
target="_blank">Uman asks: "Will GM's be
able to take part in RP events organized by players? What
kind of "special tricks" would they use (npc invocation, visual effects
or special item creation...)?"
sticky situation as it often can lead to issues of power
abuse, or accusations of favoritism. This is something Customer Service
will have to address and create policies for and is not really a design
oriented question I can answer."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24985">connn863
asks: "Will there be open beta? Also, when you die in the
game what will be lost?"
be a "mostly open" beta but it will not be completely open.
This is because it will be open to the public but we will have to cap
the number of users.
When you die you receive a debuff that stacks lowering your attack and
defense rating nothing is "lost" item or money wise."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25227"
target="_blank">nakko99 asks: "I've read that we
will be able to download AoC before the actual launch
date. Will we be able to log on and make our
character's also before the launch date?"
may change I do not believe that character creation will be
up early since it is all done on the servers and actually online.
Character creation is an actual "zone" or play area essentially, rather
than it being all client side and then the data is simply sent to the
server with what you chose."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25183"
target="_blank">kalmusek asks: "Won't the AoC
combat system make it impossible to play for people with a slow
internet connection?"
successfully played Age of Conan in laggy convention centers
sharing bandwidth on international servers in Norway from the West
Coast. So the game is playable. Of course there are limits to how much
lag a game can compensate for, but with the use of localized servers I
think gamers in general will find their experience to be good. Lag
issues are more noticeable in PvP when everyone moves as much as
possible to be evasive, in PvE since mobs tend to be more stationary
once they have engaged you it's hardly noticed."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25044"
target="_blank">Lateris asks: "Will there be any
flying mounts that become available as a rare item that can be obtained
through a quest system?"
no plans for flying mounts in Age of Conan, it's very not fitting with
the lore... While flying mounts existed in Hyborea they would be very
out
of place
as player mounts or something seen in anything but some sort of quest
IE no griffin taxi's either. This is why there will be no flying mounts
in Age of Conan."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25119"
target="_blank">Baldurin asks: "Can
we choose our pet's gender or are we forced using a default
one depending on our sex?"
spawned varies on the spell cast. The Incubus (male) and
Succubus (female) have some slightly different abilities. And there are
various levels of the different pets with different secondary bonuses."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25305"
target="_blank">Tras asks: "What kind of downtime
to regain mana / health can we expect between fights?"
in combat and out of combat regeneration, out of combat it
goes pretty quick but you can also train skills called bandaging and
renew mana respectively that let you sit and heal much faster by using
the skill."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25296"
target="_blank">Mystaskratch asks: "Is is going to
be necessary to have 100% of a raid force flagged to enter one of the
higher level dungeons?"
entirely positive, it may be somewhat quest driven, but it
could also be gear differential driven which means that if you had
enough people who were equipped for such and such raid you might be
able to squeak some new people in without a problem."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25010"
target="_blank">Drayen asks: "Will characters be
able to have sur names? And or will we be able to obtain titles?"
possible but not planned at this time for launch."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25204"
target="_blank">ILikePonies asks: "I'm assuming
for this question that unless another player is in your
guild or group, your heals will not work on them and your attacks will
hit them. I have a few concerns/questions about this setup, as well as
sieging with multiple guilds involved in general:
style="font-weight: bold;">
a) You won't be able to
help your buddy if he's getting ganked and
you're in a full group, since you can't heal him and your aoe attacks
will hurt him.
b) guilds cannot help
each other defend their keeps, because each guild
will accrue tickets separately... thus if guild Y is attempting to help
guild X hold their keep, they could wind up getting the most tickets
and taking guild X's keep without meaning to.
style="font-weight: bold;">
c) guilds cannot enter
another guild's keep to help defend.
style="font-weight: bold;">
d) it will be difficult
to help attack or defend due to friendly fire.
Your heals (I presume) will only heal your own guild, and your attacks
will hit your allies in other guilds. This means that the guilds will
have to keep their fighters segregated on the field. No multiguild tank
lines, archer units, or cavalry.
style="font-weight: bold;">
e) based on the above
assumptions, a cheap tatic will be for the
attacking guilds to get inside the guild city as soon as possible where
the allied defending guilds can't go if they wish to avoid accruing
tickets, and thus zerg the single remaining defending guild.
style="font-weight: bold;">
Is there any way to avoid
these problems, such as an ally list between players/guild or something
along those lines?"
PvP area you cannot attack your group, guild, or raid. Since
we support raid groups of up to 4 parties this should be rather easy to
accomplish. Beyond that we also have the mercenary system which would
allow members of other guilds to go under contract to gain tickets for
another guild. Thus making it possible for them to assist the other
guild without taking tickets away from them. In addition the mechanic
for acquiring tickets is surrounding a very small area and easily other
groups could be assisting by defending approach areas or walls etc
without interfering.
If you stand multiple groups of 24 people ontop of eachother and blast
away, yes you will be AOEing your own people but that would be a
tactical thing that the players themselves should be in control of."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25031"
target="_blank">zurtri asks: "I'm from Australia
and my ping on most MMORPG with US servers is about 330.
style="font-weight: bold;">Is there a mechanism in the game
that allows us to play at a reasonable
level such as the ability to "load up" attack moves in advance with the
server playing them as quick as feasible?"
Oceanic Issue is definitely an interesting one both from location
and time zone related issues. Pending launch we would have to see how
many fans we get in the Oceanic region and if we can find a hosting
partner who we will would do a good job running the servers then we
could evaluate another server as an option. However Conan does play
pretty good even with some latency as I answered in another question."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24979"
target="_blank">Bodi asks: "Is it really that big
of a benefit to craft an item within guild city
limits then say if you were off far away questing and you didn't want
to take the time to trek back within your city?"
requires the use of equipment that will be found in the Guild
Cities. I do not believe you can craft a sword in the middle of the
wild on a campfire."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25016"
target="_blank">GhostWolf7 asks: "How will ranged
mounted combat work?"
cast offensive magic from horseback, so I do not expect you
can use ranged mounted combat at all. This is because ranged combined
with the mobility of horseback would become an exploitation issue with
kiting in both PvE and PvP. However everyone has access to melee combat
and could engage from their mounts in that way."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25195"
target="_blank">tutanka asks: "When i start and
choose to play on a PvE server and I get my character up to
80 and I
want to change to a PvP server how hard will it be to change over?"
a new character on the other server. Otherwise there may be character
transfers available as a pay option at some point but I would expect
PvE to PvP may be limited."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24976"
target="_blank">Khalathwyr asks: "Can each
building in a player PVE/crafting city be of a different
architectual style? (i.e., can a city have a Cimmerian style Town Hall,
an Aquilonian style Weaponshop and a Stygian style Temple)"
everything in a city will be of the same style. At this time for
launch I believe their will only be one style. However all of the
buildings have been made so that they can be changed individually
different components. IE the frame, the walls, etc. So you should see
more variety post launch."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24982"
target="_blank">Johnny asks: "Do priests have
access to spellweaving?"
so, however it may not be available to the Bear Shaman as he is more of
a melee oriented character."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24975"
target="_blank">Martuk asks: "Will there be a
Roleplay based PvE server at launch?"
going to try to make sure we have servers to support the demand
at launch of all types. I know this sounds vague but we cannot commit
to the number of servers until we gauge better the interest. If the
demand is seen enough to populate a server for RP PvE then we will
likely have it, but so far the demand for that has been much lower than
the demand seen for RP-PvP, PVP, and PvE... The problem is we are not
talking about enough RP PVE'ers to warrant
one server we are talking about servers in each region. So the demand
has to be there in the different areas."
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=25203"
target="_blank">ILikePonies asks: "I was wondering
if the PvE servers would have worldwide 'toggle on' PvP
flags similar to WoW's, such that you can PvP where and when you wish
on the PvE servers. I was also wondering about the bounty system and
whether that was still planned for inclusion in the game and what the
ruleset around it was."
no PvP toggling on PvE servers. You have the Drunken Brawling,
the Mini game, and Border Kingdoms PvP on PvE servers but there is no
"I wanna flag myself for world PvP" option.
The final decisions on the PvP ruleset mechanics including the bounty
system are still being worked on in the beta."
about Age of Conan that you'd like answered by Funcom? Head on over to
the Ask
the Devs forum and ask away! Be sure to read the href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24948">guidelines.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Age of Conan: Unchained Game Page.
