Age of Conan at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

Ten Ton Hammer: I noticed that the player cities are going to become a little livelier with update 1.05. Can you tell us what type of new things players can expect to see when they stroll through their guild's city?

Erling: Quite a bit has been added here! Players will find their Keep now not only provides a siege supply merchant at Tier I, but a Wagoner to Old Tarantia at Tier II. At Tier III, as before, your guild is permitted to participate in massive PvP battles.

The Temple (Tier I) provides a spiritual leader who can teach the Path of Comrades, an ability that allows you to return to your guild city in the same way that the Path of Asura returns to you to your bound location.

The Barracks now supports not only the straw men and patrols of guards but also scattered watchmen throughout the city. These guards increase in level according to the tier of the Barracks (I = level 40, II = level 60, III = level 80) and will defend their guildmates against attacks. At Tier III, the Barracks also supports a Guard Captain, who will transport visitors to the Border Kingdom of their choice for a nominal fee.

City Gates will now be guarded by four sentries at all times. These sentries level up and behave in the same way as Barracks-spawned guards.

The Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Architect's Workshop, Alchemist's Workshop, and Thieves' Guild, as before, continue to support a merchant to sell profession-based crafting materials. This merchant is unaffected by building upgrades. The Armorsmith and Weaponsmith also attract guards that level up and behave in the same way as Barracks-spawned guards.

The Tradepost now not only provides a Trader, but offers the following additional features:

Tier I: A food and drink merchant, as well as business-savvy whores.

Tier II: A Potions vendor, one of the new Provisioner vendors who sell crates with bulk consumables, a
Tradeskill supplier, and a new local merchant who has a new social pet for sale from the region.

Tier III: The local merchant expands his or her wares to include two more pets, a wagoner to Conarch Village and a wagoner to Khemi.

Craig: These elements are also important for their social value I think, guilds are an important element of the game, and something we will definitely be developing further. These additions are really just the start of the process when it comes to guild functionality, you will see a lot of focus on it in the next major game update as well.

Ten Ton Hammer: In the latest “Letter from the Game Director”, Craig mentioned that players will have the option to purchase two additional character slots for their account when the new update goes live. Any word on what this will cost players who want to take advantage of the offer?

Erling: Unfortunately this new service has been delayed a bit, but we’ll be introducing this very soon. Players will be able to purchase a maximum of two character slots and one slot will cost 15 US dollars or 15 euro (incl. VAT where applicable). We’re also very pleased to be introducing one free character slot for those who have accumulated six months of subscription time. This will also affect people who reach six months accumulated subscription time in the future.

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you tell us about the new gemcrafting system? How different is it from its previous incarnation and how different will the new gems be in comparison to the old?

Craig: Again, that’s pretty much an interview in itself and there is an in-depth article on the changes on our community site. At a top level though, just as with the RPG system changes the new system means that the players now have meaningful changes for their gems, and the system is far more flexible in terms of meaningful additions.

You can find the detailed article here.

Ten Ton Hammer: What kind of new social pets can players obtain from the new vendors being added to the guild cities? Will there be additional social pets that can be found throughout the world in other locations?

Erling: The social pets vary depending on which location in the game-world your guild city is based on. Those based in Cimmeria will find the pet vendor providing dogs, Acquilonian cities offer cats and the Stygian version offers snakes.

Craig: It’s something we may do more of in the future if they prove popular with players. I think players do appreciate having some more social elements added alongside the new game-play content. So there will most likely be new social pets added in future updates as well

Ten Ton Hammer: Would you care to tell us a little about the next update or the very secretive expansion pack that you teased us with the art for some time back?

Craig: I don’t think I am allowed to talk about the expansion.

Erling: All we can say is… mark GamesCom in your calendars!

Craig:  In terms of the next update, as I outlined in the community letter we have three main focuses.

The first focus, and the major feature addition, for the next cycle will be guild gameplay. As we have mentioned before one of the major focuses for this next set of content is improving our guild functionality and the purpose and role of guilds in the game. I will explore this in more depth, and reveal a little about the direction these changes will take, in the next community letter.

In addition we will have new content as we move on to looking at the addition of new high level content for both groups and raids in the majestic halls of the House of Crom. The team is preparing some really fantastic gameplay suitable for such an epic location. Continuing to add even more high level content is an important goal for us and this location plays a huge part in that. As the next major content addition you can look forward to hearing much more about this over the summer months as we prepare the challenges and encounters that await you in this most imposing and deadly of dungeons.

Then we also have the ongoing task of adding more goals and objectives to the Borderlands PVP playfields. This is something that we are busily planning and working on already and hope to be able to add to over the course of the next update cycle.

Ten Ton Hammer: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.

Craig: Always a pleasure!

Erling: Thank you for having us! We really hope players will come back and take a look at what’s changed with the game since launch, particularly after this massive update. We look forward to everyone’s feedback in the time ahead!