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Sieges and PvP.  People Still Do Those, Right?

Before launch, Age of Conan appeared to have an amazing focus and a solid grip on player versus player gameplay with Border Kingdoms, PvP mini-games, and large scale sieges all being prime features that had PvP fans dying to get in and give it a try.  Unfortunately, many of those fans got in-game and declared PvP in AoC to be completely broken.  So what needed fixing and did it get done?

Sieges are such a cool concept.  Guilds can battle it out on an epic level for fame and glory using their wits and skills.  The trouble with sieges ended up being that siege weapons didn’t always work right, random crashes happened just a little too often, and the game stopping bad lag rendered sieges useless for a whole lot of players.

Luckily, most of these issues were easy fixes once they were finally attended to.  Sieges work quite a bit better now, though the lag can still be painful.  Of course there will likely always be a struggle with no bugs and exploits, but like with any game, these will be dealt with as they crop up.

Mini-games, also another good concept, just never gained a whole lot of attention.  I didn’t even hear about them myself until I had been playing AoC for many months.  The mini-games have been completely reworked and promoted bringing in interested players to enjoy various games, like capture the skull or annihilate opposing team scenarios.  The bones are there to make this a well used feature, but players still seem to want a little more meat put on these PvP encounters.  A great solution would be creating cross-server mini-games to promote not only interest in the scenarios, but also a fun and healthy rivalry between server populations.  It may not be completely feasible, but anything that would get players into mini-games would put to use a very good aspect of the game that is being completely missed by many.

I’ve always thought that open PvP in AoC was quite good.  Aside from class imbalances and lack of players joining in, the PvP system had a lot going for it but growth continues for this feature as well.

Consequences are extremely important in PvP and this is something that Funcom has taken the time to address with the Notoriety system.  Being marked as a murderer or a criminal for stepping over the line of kosher gameplay goes a long way in enforcing the play nice policy.  Of course there will continue to be players who enjoy these tags, but at least they come with some forewarning and griefers will receive fewer benefits for their troubles.

We’re Not Done Yet!

Check back with Ten Ton Hammer next week as we cover Age of Conan updates to itemization, classes, and crafting!