Game Director Letter – August 2013

[Kurt2013]

Yes, but that is the point...even though (assumed it was just the assasin and maybe one or two others attacking them) they could have done something, they didn't. And yes, what you meant was what made me sad too...it did not even look like they did it on purpose (sometimes this annoys a ganker more than fighting back), but actually thought they would be there for a world boss only (and obviously had not done much open pvp either)...

The "it is a pvp server" argument is false on so many accounts...no need to bring up that discussion again. Under certain conditions, true. But here obviously content was blocked...and the fault lies mostly in the design, not in those exploiting it (though if you keep doing it, it says a lot about you...killing afk, busy or chatting people must be a real challenge ). With enough decent population, there will always be people hunting him...making the whole thing again fun for two parties, not just one as shown in the video.

For example, if funcom spawns such bosses near a ress point, the "disturbance" factor of solo people interrupting and blocking content can be foreseen. Same goes for putting events into bottlenecks...

If the attacker actually was taking a risk here (like he really had to survive to get xp and kills or travel a longer way while being at risk of being hunted), but he only needed to injure and the boss and adds did the rest -> game design flaw.
Same goes for collateral damages on lowbies creating murder points for the whole raid -> exploitable game design flaw
Take white sands, it combined both bad designs ...a bottleneck and a ress...

[xiulo88]

I thought it was awesome. They're on a pvp server. Why would they not expect to get attacked? All they had to do was make a raid and dispense with anyone poaching them.

What was sad was the people who realized they were being attacked, yet kept targeting the boss instead of the sin who was killing them.

After seeing this video I almost can asur I'll never set foot in a pvp server. lol

[Radek87]

What was sad was the people who realized they were being attacked, yet kept targeting the boss instead of the sin who was killing them.

Why they play on PvP server?? Miss clicked?

[kalston]

You go out of your way to be a complete douche. I don't know why he'd even bother to respond to you.

Seems he is very emotional and bitter (just like when speaking about Fury and Russians). This is also not the first time he gets very aggressive towards Nusquam.

[Chillee]

Yes, but that is the point...even though (assumed it was just the assasin and maybe one or two others attacking them) they could have done something, they didn't.

Your own comment here makes everything else you said irrelevant. They blocked the content for themselves, not funcom, and not the sin who was poaching them.

[smacpro]

but no....making a new server from scratch to compete in pve to reach lvl80 first is your great plan for pvp.

newsflash the pvp'rs joining wont pass lvl40 they will just stalk around players trying to lvl up, and that is if they bother doing that instead of playing theyr mains.

agreed
i have more than 12 lvl 80's why should i do that again?!
same bad idea like "pvp" bosses

[Nusquam]

So those are the only thing you have planned for pvp.

You have absolutely no plans whatsoever for any new game systems.
Nothing in long term plans, nothing at the drawing board or brainstorm stage? Just these 3 things.

Talking about drawing board or brainstorm stage things is exactly why Age of Conan dropped X customers at launch. Unrealized promises.
And the thing is, I was on the dev team. Things were talked about with good intentions, but they weren't delivered. I understand how much that disappoints people and I am very wary of doing such things when I am in a position to avoid it. Trust me, I'd love to be able to update you every month with a dozen new features.

The current situation is, the team is finishing up promises made in the past. Dragonspine, Tradeskills e.t.c they were not initiatives I began but we are going to finish them before we can move on.

In the mean time, we are doing experiments with a PvP event and so far - despite my request for suggestions to improve the event - I've seen nothing but vitriol or ridiculous assumptions that this event means we are not doing other things.

Concrete suggestions for PvP improvements are not ignored - I have made note of some of the things mentioned here - though many of them are incoherent, nostalgic and utterly unusable.

I am trying to use my limited resources to the greatest possible effect for the game (like the race which requires almost no work from my team, and mostly requires work on people outside of the core development team.)

If you want to have a discussion about improvements to the game, that is fine. Kicking and screaming and calling me names won't speed up development no matter how much you do it.

[K4nnyc]

Seems he is very emotional and bitter (just like when speaking about Fury and Russians). This is also not the first time he gets very aggressive towards Nusquam.

Thats not aggressive. They take your subscription money each month, the same as they take mine but its a rare event that content gets added. I would like to know as I'm sure many people would like to know what and when content is coming. It's not unreasonable.

I'm just asking the questions that need to be asked. We had 5 years of obscure game letters each month, 5 years of "we are thinking of that feature" or "we didnt rule out that feature yet" or "maybe in the future".

But in those 5 years we got no working pvp content apart from CJS minigame which was buggy as hell on launch. In fact pvp has gotten steadily worse over the past 5 years.

We need complete disclosure, complete transparency.
Are you prepared for 3-4 more years of "maybe, possibly or perhaps?" Are you prepared for 3-4 more years of nearly zero content? We need to know what we are getting in advance with timelines.

That way vets can make an informed decision if its going to be fun enough to stay or not. If there is going to be no T5 or no expansion or no pvp game systems like Noite listed then why should vets hang around? For aztels fortress and scorp cave revamp. Really?

Then need to talk to us. Enough is enough.

[Doomkiller]

Talking about drawing board or brainstorm stage things is exactly why Age of Conan dropped X customers at launch. Unrealized promises.
And the thing is, I was on the dev team. Things were talked about with good intentions, but they weren't delivered. I understand how much that disappoints people and I am very wary of doing such things when I am in a position to avoid it. Trust me, I'd love to be able to update you every month with a dozen new features.

The current situation is, the team is finishing up promises made in the past. Dragonspine, Tradeskills e.t.c they were not initiatives I began but we are going to finish them before we can move on.

In the mean time, we are doing experiments with a PvP event and so far - despite my request for suggestions to improve the event - I've seen nothing but vitriol or ridiculous assumptions that this event means we are not doing other things.

Concrete suggestions for PvP improvements are not ignored - I have made note of some of the things mentioned here - though many of them are incoherent, nostalgic and utterly unusable.

I am trying to use my limited resources to the greatest possible effect for the game (like the race which requires almost no work from my team, and mostly requires work on people outside of the core development team.)

If you want to have a discussion about improvements to the game, that is fine. Kicking and screaming and calling me names won't speed up development no matter how much you do it.

http://aoc.is-better-than.tv/armory.php?s=19

Can u make these weapons purchasable with MoAs?

They r BLUE quality weapons

MoA = Marks of Acclaim.

While not my intention, it might help PvP.

[Slith]

In other words: if we set the expectations at rock bottom we cannot fail.

AOC has little to no resources and so saying: we don't want to over promise sounds a lot better than "we don't have any money".

The Hyborian race, for me, is pvp equivalent of horse racing track: no one asked for that and you are delivering because its dirt cheap to deliver.

While I appreciate that GD comes here with replies some of the posts are just cracking wise at paying customers. I personally don't enjoy this "forum buddy" attitude in GD and posting "lols" in replies along "you don't like the game then quit". That is the kind of stuff that I can get from other forum posters, I don't think it suits paid professional with high position in MMO industry.

Again my personal stance is that I am disappointed with current GD and how AOC development is going.