GAME OVERVIEW - Condensed

PART I


GDC 2008

* Acheronian Ruins Gameplay Video: https://www.dailymotion.com/cluster/v...gdc-2008_video
* Hands On Video about mounted combat mostly showing mammoth, rhino, horse in combat: http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/videos/203...ml?vid eoCate
* Onlinewelten Presentation Video: http://trailer.onlinewelten.com/vide...sentation.html


Server Types:

* Server types (PVE, PVP, RPPVP). There will be rules of etiquette and a restricted naming policy on RPPVP server.
* There will be European and US servers. If you buy a US version of the game, you can only join on US servers, if you buy a Eu version (UK, german, french, spanish), you can join any Eu server. The censorship is based on the dvd key, german version is cut, you will see blood, but no fatalities like chopping heads and limbs off. US version will be uncut now (Correction Thread). You could buy a european version of the game in the US, but then you can only join EU servers and will get higher pings and the timewindow for sieging will be late night/early morning for you.



PVP

* anyone who is not in your group is attackable (they think about adding guildmembers to the non attack list no matter if they are in another group or solo)
* there´s a pvp variation of all equipment stats
* there will be a pvp ranking system which increases with pvp kills and decreases with pvp deaths
* the highest ranked pvpers will be awarded with ingame items
* different styles of CTF arenas, the ones we saw at CES etc were stygian style maps, there will be more after launch
* besides CTF, there will be team annihilation
* CTF battles involve battling it out with the other team in an 8 player, 4-vs.-4 format where you have 10 minutes to win the match completely, of which involves capturing the other team's flag three times before they capture yours the same number. (curse article)
* there is also a Team Deathmatch type of instanced PvP, both with Ranked or Skirmish options. In Ranked matches, dying means you lose "PvP experience"
* no death penalty besides loss of pvpranking and blood money. you don´t drop a tombstone when you die by another player.


Crafting

* you can only learn one crafting profession per character
* current minimum level is 40, but they think about lowering it to 20
* crafting profs are: weaponsmith, armorsmith, alchemist, gemcutter, architekt.
* crafting experience will only be gained through crafting quests
* recipes will be always usable (are non consumable)
* leveling crafting is bound to your adventuring level, means you cant craft tier2 items before you reach a certain adventuring level
* nearly all items have 2 variations, crafted with normal resources and with rare. only craftable items have sockets for gems
* sockets come in different sizes, 4 per item are usable
* gems cant be removed, once equipped, however, very rare gems might be removable.
* most of the crafted items or even all wont have stats like strength or intelligence. they´ll have base values.
* crafted items without gems are not comparable with very good looted items, however they are more flexible then looted items. they are good against opponents with special resistances or weaknesses.
* higher quality items can only be obtained from people who are in a guild and in a guildcity.
* crafting works everywhere (currently not sure if you will be able to craft more complicated items everywhere)
* Avery´s report from Oslo about crafting! http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53149
* TenTonHammer crafting video from Oslo http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/21062
* SunCe´s compiled list of crafting: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=55749
* Crafting/Harvesting Video from Oslo: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/21062



Guild Cities

* there are 3 instanced zones for every guild:
Cimmeria: Lache flats
Aquilonia: Poitain
Stygia: Redlotus Marches
* A guild needs 24 people to build a city. Some of them have to reach level 60.
* You can only choose the country when founding a guildcity (Cim, Aqu, Sty), the instance and the city plot is automatic
* all buildings need a combination of wood, stone, metal, gold, i.e. 1500 wood, 1500 stone etc, which will be a massive amount of resources.
* inside the building site, there are dozens of cornerstones in different sizes. an architect, with guild permission, will be able to build different buildings on those spots. after the "payment", the building process has been started
* the first building is always the keep
* nearly all building can be upgraded one or two ranks
* upgrades raise the level of the city
* walls are buildings too and there are specific building sites for them. there are inner and outer walls. towers and stairs can be placed nearly everywhere.
* you will be able to teleport to your guildcity´s keep everytime. they think about a cooldown of that feature.
* within your guild city are tradeposts, you can mark a bank item to be traded on the tradepost and set a instant sale prize
* you get different buffs from building like barracks, alchemist towers etc as combatant and crafter
* Avery´s Video - Sieging+PVE guild cities http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53395

PART II


Harvesting

* 6 harvesting profs (Mining, Prospecting, Skinning, Stonecutting, Weaving, Woodcutting)
* you can learn all harvesting profs at once
* every resource has 6-8 levels (i.e. for mining: bronze, iron,...)
* chance of getting a rare resource (within level) during harvesting
* resources are displayed on the minimap
* can be found in the city zones (crafting city and border kingdoms) and rarely in the world
* there is no plan to specialze in a specific resource
* there are additional resources, dropped by specific mobs
* Gemcutter and Alchemist harvest their resources through killed mobs
* harvesting nodes are specially designed with particle effects to make it easier to notice them (curse.com)



Border Kingdoms

* 9 battlekeeps per server. this number will be reduced on lower populated servers at game start
* to obtain a BK keep, your guild has to have a guildcity rankIII
* one keep per guild, however you can attack other keeps
* the longer the guild holds the keep, the stronger the bonus every guildmember gets.
* different forms of keeps can be made, but it wont be as customizable as a guildcity, it wont be a second guildcity
* every guild can set an attack timer, there is a minimum timeframe however. there are specific timezones when a keep can be made attackable (depends on which server you play, i.e. EU or US). so it wont be able to set the keep attackable at 0300 server time.
* the bigger the attack window, the easier it gets for the defending guild to hold the keep
* siege maximum time is 90 minutes so far. if the attacking guild isnt succesful, the keep has been defended.
* if the keep is attackable, attacking players can build a wartent. defending guildmembers receive an alarm.
* two ways for the attacking guild to win:
- "partial victory" when the keep inside the keep is destroyed. the defending guild loses all their bonus, but keeps the keep.
- "total victory": obtained by destryoing all buildings inside the keep, the attacking players can build their own keep straight away
* siegeweapons wil lbe build on the battlefield and require wood, iron, stone, gold and can only be build at specific spots. (ca. 8 slots)
* there are siege slots for the attacking and the defending guild
* destrying of the walls is quite fast (several minutes). hiding inside the keep wont be a good option
* a partial destroyed keep (partial victory) or a new keep cant be attacked for a specific time
* there are other targets, besides the keeps inside the battle keep, for example, towers. its something for smaller guilds. there is currently no limit how many towers a guild can hold.
* there are no plans to upgrade towers so far, if so, there will be limited upgrades.



Raids:

* 4 groups, each 6 players
* loot = items not tokens
* master looter can distribute loot
* 20 raid encounters at start of the game
- devided into 8 dungeons in different sizes
- the 8 dungeons come in 3 different levels, but minimum level will be 75
* most dungeons can be accomplished in 1-3 hours for experienced raid members
* it will be easier to accomplish the higher levels if you done the previous levels by looting the items in the first runs
* cooldown of 7 days for raid dungeons. player based.
* Funcom is also going to be saving the state of the dungeon, and most of the monsters will not respawn for that week once they've been killed
* Avery´s Video about Raids/Mounts: http://www.stage6.com/user/AcolyteAvery/video/2123683/



Localisation:

* US version is uncut
* Fatalities are in the german version, even though the most brutal ones will be cut
* its possible to obtain the preorder bonus in EU, more info in the next weeks
* there will be a spanish version of the game.


Spellweaving:

* spellweaving is still ingame, it works similar to the melee combo system now. you wont use spellweaving as often as combos, but the effect is stronger.
* possibilty to damage yourself or your group with intensive use of spellweavin is planned. there are other disadvantages planned.
* no more hell for intensive use of spellweaving. its not funny if some of your groupmembers suddenly disappear during raid etc.

PART III


Groups:

* small xp bonus for killing stuff
* 3 loot options:
- round robin
- free for all
- master looter. loot can be distributed by the master looter
* quest items always drop for every groupmember with the quest
* nearly all smaller caves or minidungeons (like the maze or acheronian ruins) have a hero mode (a challenging groupgame), because those dungeons are normally made for solo or minigroups.



Mounts:

* there will be a big choice of horses (5-10 in different colors)
* differ in hitpoints, turn radius, stamina, speed
* all mounts can attack on their own and cause different damage
* many spells can be fired from the back of a horse
* its possible to get kicked of the horse during a fight
* the warmammoth and the rhino are nearly the same in stats, the rhino is more agile though and the warmammoth has more HP
* mammoth and rhino are exclusiv preorder items atm
* requirement for a mount is lvl40
* mounts are inventory items, you can have many of them
* currently mounts cannot be customized at release, but they will come up with something later. its unclear what a mount does, when you dismoount atm.



Stealth:

* every class is able to stealth
* different possibilites to detect a stealthed player:
- stealth skill: raised with skillpoints
- perception: if its higher then the stealth skill of a player, you detect him faster
- noise: dependent of the gear you wear, the surface, the speed
- viewcone: a stealthed player infront of you,will be detected easier
- lighting level: easier to see a stealthed player at day
* there will be a interface which lets you see the lighting level



Tortage:

* Even though it´s possible to level to 25 in Tortage so far, they add more quests to the zone, because beta testers complained about the lack of traveling. there will be smugglerquests which leads you out of the city.
* you can level to 20 in tortage, you can gain more xp, but it wont count.
* there will be more starting areas after release
* Smuggler system, that let´s you leave the island before you reach levl 20 to explore the world (article curse.com)


Gameplay:

* when you die, you drop a tombstone and some of your stats will be reduced for 30 min, you can counter this debuff by clicking your tombstone
* pings of over 500ms shouldnt be a problem in gameplay. there is a invisible actionqueue. FC was converned about different internetconnections liek dialups, ISDN etc and constructed the game engine in a way that everyone will enjoy the game
* Great character creation movie PART I: http://www.hexus.tv/show.php?show=223
* First Ingame Moments PART II: http://www.hexus.tv/show.php?show=224
* Gaute Godager announced that the game will be shipping with the ability to modify the look of interface elements; changing the graphics and so forth. However, post-launch, Funcom plans to add the ability to interface with the Age of Conan UI API, allowing the ability to create unique and new UI elements, similar to what World of Warcraft currently employs. (http://aoc.curse.com/articles/details/5781/)



Zoning/Travel/Worldmap

* small traveling loading screen is planned (let´s you see from where you travel and where to). anyone remember indiana jones games?
* loading screen will be edited and will be different for each zone



Audio:

* background music´s length is about 3 hours. the sound changes when in combat
* 5.1 and 7.1 sound support
* choirs and opera singers are used
* Avery´s report from Oslo about the amazing sound and music in AoC http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53185



Online Ranking/database:

* PVP and Serverstatistic portal is in the makings



Classes:

* Class list
* Scion of Set and Druid of the Storm is merged to Tempest of Set.
* Tempest of Set is a stygian priest, who uses electrical damage and area effects
* if he does more damage, he can heal better. contrary to the priest of mitra, if he heals more, he does more damage
* no lich class anymore, because it felt like a herald of xotli.
* most lich elements are in the necromancer class now, for example, transforming into a lich
* there are 3 classes for every archetype now (3 soldiers, 3 rogues, 3 mages, 3 priests)
* every race has his own priest class now
* SunCe´s compiled list of Classes can be found here: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=55740

Miscellaneous

* Preorder Bonus/Head Start Info: you will get a preorder key if you pay the 5 € (gives you 10 days free playtime). you can use this preorder key to download the game 6 days before release and you will be able to play it 3 days before launch. Not all reseller offer the headstart, only those with the preorder mounts!
* 1500 armor/clothing sets, video from Avery from Oslo visit: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53176
* Avery´s Video about insights on AoC Quests: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53196
* Game Designer Gaute about Prestige Classes/Class Merge: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/21146
* Avery´s Video about "Sanctum of the Burning Souls" http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthr...=1#post1321337
* CES 2008 Barbarian Video: http://www.tomsgames.com/us/site/fla..._gameplay.html
* Comic book Review from Oslo Visit, nicely done! http://hyboriancodex.hybes.org/publi...slobook-us.pdf
* HTTP Download version: Friday feature 26th January - Q&A: http://files.filefront.com/Community.../fileinfo.html
* HTTP Download version: Friday feature 8th February - Q&A Part II: http://files.filefront.com/Community.../fileinfo.html
* HTTP Download version: Friday feature 8th February - Q&A Part III: http://files.filefront.com/Community.../fileinfo.html
* SunCe´s written summary of Q&A Part II and III: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=55767

Very nice reveiw that will give me somthing to read and watch in the coming weekend to counter my study for finals. Wll Done.

Hey that wsa well put together!