Game Director Letter - April 2013

[Kurt2013]

Solo doable dungeon like Forgotten city that is doable with small groups as well and scales with difficulty (and loot) accordingly, is actually complety missing in the game now (especially since slaughterhouse cellar, attilus mansion etc. are broken now for groups).
I agree about pure solo timesink instances, but that should not stop them from looking into things to do for casual players and small groups.

[StaHoo]

Quote: "Palace of Cetriss Raid & Minigame - Both are still in a fairly early stage of production and will require several months to reach a release state. More details on progress in those in the upcoming months."

Gotta love these time frames(...Several...) if i'd be doing my job with your speed u'll had ur own home in several years yeah!

[bandytaz]

Gotta admit I'm glad that I'm back. I'm even going to call some folks and tell them that they should give AoC a try (again!).

[Jaedelyia]

Oh god no!! no more solo dungeons pls....

I disagree. I love the option to do solo dungeon. Sometime, I just want to play a bit, like half an hour or so, and i'm glad these exist, especially when I'm connecting at unusual hour and I don't want to spend 10 minute finding a group. Plus, some solo instance are very nice.

I love 6 man and Raid, but I also love the fact that you have sometime a solo instance

[Monkeyy]

Not much new pvp wise. Mini is far away. No new PvP gear to balance T4 and give people something new. Arena? Ranking system? Unchained is new but its the same minis as last 5 years.

[Chaman-bourru]

In addition, during the patch cycle which includes the Unchained updates, we will also make some changes to the guards in world PvP, to facilitate better battles in the open world.

Good start but far from enough.

[Kalgon]

Good start but far from enough.

Yes we need something to make more players want to get into world pvp. Not sure what but I'm sure many have already posted great ideas in the forums.

[Kurt2013]

Yes, plenty of good ideas on the old forums. You can check on TL, too. There are plenty of good ideas too (too bad you can't link to TL from here). If interested you could just check the thread about a working consequence and renown system (worked out with some friends) and let me know what you think. Also some nice ideas about deathmatch or random events and quests (those are not mine though).

[KullOfValusia]

Wow, Joel really has huge ambitions for the game. I salute you. But the PvP is a fine balancing act and if you can pull it off..kudos to you.

Some suggestions for unchained pvp if you can humor me,

1.) I get home from my dull 7x7 cubicle and switch on the tele and my comp.

2.) I read the forums on AoC while waiting for AoC to update.

3.) I get on guild chan and look for a PvP partner. I find someone and I open up a PvP group and invite him. He accepts and now we are a PvP team, effectively from this point on me and my sidekick will do the exact minis and go wherever PvP is together.

4.) We sign up for some open world PvP(sign up for some open world PvP??? WTF is he talking about?!) Hm, Cimmeria..conarch village playfield...excellent, let's do it.

5.) Upon entering the playfield I tap ctrl-h to bring up the PvP roster. Great, over 50 players 20 teams and 10 solos. This is deathmatch mode where we're going for bodycount. I ask my sidekick if he wants to do capture the skull instead and he responds by saying that he'll vote for CTS on the roster interface after this deathmatch is over. I concurred.

6.) I then scroll through the list and hover over some names...interesting 2 solos are red skulls(top 5 player in their respective class.) another 5 teams are ranked and have high k/d ratios. I make a mental note of the names then proceed to enter PvP.

7.) Upon pressing PvP unchained for conarch village. My sidekick and I are transported to the armory. Therein are a plethora of PvP weapons with different abilities and class specific bonuses. Like what ancient roman gladiators did before me, I carefully strategize which weapons and armor pieces will benefit me during this particular battle. I make my decision and step out of the armory and enter PvP.

8.) I have a lot of fun.

9.) Before I log off I sub for another year.

/end story.

[Manilavanilla]

that GD letter was a very interesting read, thank you!