AoC’s Craig Morrison Talks PvP and Server Merge - Ten Ton Hammer
With server merges in place Hyboria is seeing a revitalization in game and nothing makes this more obvious than Game Director Craig Morrison’s zeal for moving forward. In a recent interview with GameSpy, Morrison had this to say:
According to Morrison, as the company worked through its opening-day problems, it also shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company would scale back when it needed to. “The server merges were done and dusted within 48 hours. We’re very pleased with how it went and the communities have come together pretty well.” Among other elements, Morrison cites the fact that all battlekeeps were deleted when the servers were merged, yet all the available spots were claimed and being fought over within a few hours.
“The bottom line is that players are happier when there are more players around,” Morrison said regarding the server merge. “The main thing we needed to do is focus on new content and improving the areas that launch players didn’t like. As we’ve done so and the game has gotten better, the community has become much more positive and started to spread positive word-of-mouth. The more that happens, the more people who have left might think that maybe they should give the game another chance and the more new players might decide to jump in.”
In fact, Morrison stated that only one major area from the launch remains to be addressed: the lack of decent gear. That, he says, will be addressed in a big itemization re-work that will help clarify item statistics and make gear more meaningful in the game. Going forward, he’s looking toward brand-new ideas and systems that the team can finally start thinking seriously about. “Just recently the balance has started to shift from fixing old things to working out new things to add to the game,” he said. “As we get through this year, we’re looking to add all sort of new community features and guild functionality. [Age of Conan] has so much potential that it’s finally beginning to reach. It’ll be nice to be able to move on to new stuff.”
Morrison also talks about Age of Conan’s PvP and consequence system and the tricks of keeping those balanced.
If you’d like to read more of this interview, stop on by GameSpy to get the full story!
AoC: Letter from the Game Director - Ten Ton Hammer
It’s about that time again when we get an update from Game Director Craig Morrison. We get to hear details about the latest zones that are currently on test and what the future holds for Age of Conan.
Now that the server merges are complete and the new communities start to come together, in some cases alongside new allies, in others against new foes, I wanted to take some time out and talk a little about what’s coming up in the immediate future.
This starts with the next major game update, and with it some great new game-play and a host of new game-play updates and new features. The update is currently available on the test servers and we’ve been making good progress on getting it polished up and ready for the live environment.
I have enjoyed playing through the new Xibaluku dungeon with the dev team over the last few weeks and I wanted to share a little more in terms of what you can expect to see coming your way when this dungeon hits the live servers. Xibaluku is a six person instance for level 80 players found in Thunder River. That much we have already said in previous information, so more importantly – what does it play like?
With Xibaluku we have challenged the developers to make the dungeon an even more dynamic, interactive and challenging encounter for players that will stand up well to replay. I think the game-play we introduced with Ymir’s Pass in the previous update cycle raised the bar in terms of the fun factor of the new content and we wanted to take it even further with this dungeon.
Xibaluku contains up to a dozen boss encounters, some are essential to progress, some are completely optional but all have been designed to try and provide a really dynamic and changing experience in the dungeon. Some of the bosses may even appear with different abilities or in different forms across different visits! I also say ‘up to’ a dozen because not all the bosses may appear on any given single play through, some are rotated in and out, and there are even two very different end encounters in the dungeon. Which end boss you get will depend on factors relating to your progress through the dungeon itself (and no, I’m not going to provide any spoilers here as to what those factors are!).
Many of the encounters take the game-play challenge up a notch and require you to not just consider the boss itself, but also to consider the environment around you, and even to perform other challenging, even platform style, actions during the boss fight. I think the team has done a fantastic job on focusing keenly on the fun factor in this dungeon and I am really looking forward to what you all make of it!
Another major change that’s on the horizon with the next update that I wanted to mention in this letter are the new PVP resources. This new game mechanic means that after this update PVP Battlekeeps must be made from special resources harvested in the Border Kingdoms themselves. Open world PVP is a game element that many of you have said you enjoy, but we wanted to introduce more reasons for you to take the fight to the open spaces of the Border Kingdoms and give you meaningful resources to fight over. Want to restrict an opposing guild from building up their resources, and head off a challenge? Now you have the ability to do so! We will be keeping a close eye on how this element plays out and are prepared to continue to tweak and adjust the resources and their locations as we continue testing. We firmly believe that continually looking to add more meaningful goals for PVP is very important and we will continue to work on this area of the game over future updates!
Open world PVP is also only one flavor of the PVP available and we are also taking steps to make sure that the instanced PVP battles are also more accessible. The next update will bring with it a better sign-up process that should allow people to find games much easier, and result in more frequent games.
That’s just a few of the new changes and features that will be introduced with the new update. Remember you can check out the test servers for full details of what’s coming up, including full provisional update notes on the test server forum.
Last, but by no means least, the Direct X10 version is also starting to shape up nicely. While we aren’t going to allow it hold back the deployment of the rest of the update we are hard at work ensuring that we concentrate on optimizing the DX10 features and making sure it’s ready to launch as soon as possible. A huge thanks to everyone who has given us excellent feedback from the test server, it really does make this stage of the process much easier.
In my next letter we start to cover the upcoming item and statistic changes in a lot more detail. As soon as the latest update is live the attention will move to introducing you to the nature of these changes and how they will affect the game. All the core work is now done internally and we are currently working on converting all the existing items to the new system. We hope to move the items and statistics update to the test servers as soon as possible after the upcoming update is released to live.
So that’s about it for this update. Thank you all again for continuing to make Hyboria an exciting and dynamic world!
AoC Game Director Optimistic About the Future - Ten Ton Hammer
Eurogamer.net’s interview didn’t dig up anything surprising but it did ease the fears of many knowing that Age of Conan was still moving forward. With plans of a Xbox 360 platform launch and an expansion in the works, Game Director Craig Morrison is optimistic that players will give AoC a second chance.
Jockie asks: Historically, once an MMO begins to slide there’s no way back, given the calibre of competition on the market. How do you about-turn and convince disillusioned players you’re back on track when so many claim Age of Conan remains fundamentally broken?
Craig Morrison: I’m not sure that it’s completely true a game can’t come back, EVE Online for example has built itself up very successfully over the years, and our own Anarchy Online is still going strong almost eight years on from its poor launch.
So I firmly believe that if we focus on the right things and continue to provide that fun and engaging content I mentioned above then it does start to turn. Once players are having fun in the game and enjoying the content, they start to tell their friends and word of mouth improves and it can grow from there.
There will of course always be some players who simply aren’t into giving a game a second chance and will continue to mention only the launch, but I think the majority are fair minded enough to listen when they hear fellow players saying, ‘You know what? This came has really improved,’ because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what we say about the game ourselves, the key is what those playing it think and share with the community. To achieve that we need to keep that all important focus on improving the game and giving players the experience that warrants them telling their friends about the improvements.
Learn a little about what the future may bring in this great player lead interview hosted by Eurogamer.net.
AoC Character Transfers Now Available! - Ten Ton Hammer
We’ve been waiting for it, and now it is finally here! Age of Conan Community Manager Famine has posted the announcement that character transfers are available and ready to be used. There are some stipulations though, so read carefully!
As announced before the server merges, we are offering a free one-use character transfer option for all characters. If you wish to join a different community after the merge than the one you were allocated you are free to do so. This transfer is free of charge and can be used once per character. The service is available from your billing pages (https://register.ageofconan.com) and it will be running for one month until 21st of February.
Some additional information about the character transfer that might be important to know:
* Every character is eligible for one free transfer.
* The time it takes to get the transfer completed will depend on the load. The standard transfer will take 30 minutes. If the load is very, very heavy it might take up to 72 hours for the transfer to complete so please be patient.
==> Please also note that you must not login to any character of the same account as long as a transfer is still running. You are able to check the status of a running transfer on the account website too (https://register.ageofconan.com). The character transfer would get aborted should you login with any character during that time and you would have to start it again.
* If one, or more, servers become too popular we reserve the right to stop transfers to the servers in question at any time.
* Transfers to or from the “fresh start” servers Ironspine and Agony are not allowed.
* Transfers to all other servers will be available for all characters, regardless of rule set and language. Please be aware though that the allowed chat language is defined for each server. So no other language allowed in the public chat channels than the defined server language (for example English on Fury or German on Mitra etc.).
Get more information and join the discussion on the official forums by following this link.
Server Merger List Announced - Ten Ton Hammer
Funcom just released the official server merger list for Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures. The list includes a huge number of mergers aimed at increasing the population for each server and providing players with a strong community. Some of the mergers are rather large such as Tyranny’s which will merge as many as six different servers.
As you probably have heard, we merged the two US servers ‘Bloodspire’ and ‘Hyperborea’ on 7th of January. We monitored the new server closely and can confirm that the merge was going very well and without issues. So we will now proceed with the next steps for the other servers.
Firstly, we present you the list of the planned servers to be merged (see below). We will proceed with merging next week and the specific date and time as well as the expected downtime will be announced soon too. As a general information we can already say that the plan is to merge all EU servers in one go and all US servers in another go.
Now, here’s the list of planned server merges. The first server shown (in bold) will remain as the servername after the merges. The servers merged together with the first one are then listed below.
US Servers
- Set (PvE)
* Damballah
* Bardisattva
* Dagoth
* Derketo
* Hanuman
- Wiccana (PvE)
* Mannanan
* Ajujo
* Thog
* Zug
* Omm
- Gwahlur (PvE - Oceaninc)
- Tyranny (PvP)
* Scourge
* Bluesteel
* Stormrage
* Deathwhisper
* Doomsayer
* Shadowblade
- Cimmeria (PvP-RP)
* Bane
- Bloodspire (PvP - Oceanic) - merged on 7th January 2009)
* Hyperborea
EU Servers
English Servers
- Crom (PVE)
* Ymir
* Bori
* Bloodbrand (Ahriman)
* Dagon
- Hyrkania (PVE-RP)
- Fury (PvP)
* Battlescar
* Wildsoul
* Soulstorm
* Twilight
- Aquilonia (PvP-RP)
* Corinthia
German Servers
- Mitra (PvE)
* Ibis
* Asura
- Aries (PvP)
* Titus
- Asgard (PvP-RP)
French Servers
- Ishtar (PvE)
- Ferox (PvP)
* Strix
- Stygia (PvP-RP)
Spanish Servers
- Zingara (PvE)
- Indomitus (PvP)
New Seasonal Event Competition - Ten Ton Hammer
Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures will be joining the ranks of many other games this holiday season as they hold an ingame seasonal event for players to take part in. If you can be the one to win this event you will win an assortment of ingame items and two free months of play time.
In celebration of the days getting longer now and the turning of the sun, we will hold an in-game competition on each Age of Conan server.
Players will have to hunt and kill a certain mountain goat we will have spawned. The exact location where this specific goat can be found will be told in form of riddles which we will post here on the community portals. The location of the mountain goat will be different on each server to make it a bit more challenging.
Keep an eye out on the Season Event entries on the portal at 23rd, 24th, 29th, 30th and 31st of December. These will be the dates the competition will be held.
The event will run exactly once on each of the servers during the whole period of the competition (one single time on only one of the the 5 days mentioned above) so make sure you don’t miss the one running on yours.
To give you an idea, here’s an example of a possible riddle:“Between the sunset and the dark night.
Where the clans trade
and the lion sells his goods.”
The first line reveals the servername
The second line tells you about the playfield
The third line describes the exact spotThe first player to solve the riddle, finding the spot and killing the Mountain Goat will be declared the winner of that server.
Each winner will get a whole set of in-game items for Age of Conan. Each set contains:
- The brand new Snow Mammoth
- The War Mammoth
- The Killer Rhino
- Ring of Acheron
- Drinking Cape
- Bag of Holding
- Amazon Bow
- Totem of Origins
In addition, the winners also get 2 months of free game time.
So, what do you have to do again to win this prize on your server?
1) Check the Season Event entries on the community portal to read the riddle which will reveal the server, the playfield and the exact spot the Mountain Goat can be found at.
2) Go to that spot and find the Mountain Goat spawned there.
3) Be the first to kill the goat to become the winner and get the prize.
That’s it.
The winners will receive the codekey by e-mail to activate all of the above mentioned in-game items for his/her Age of Conan gameaccount. The 2 months additional free game time will be activated by Funcom directly on the account.
Happy hunting and good luck!
Exclusive Conan Movie Interview with Fredrik Malmberg - Ten Ton Hammer
The hype for the release of Age
of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
was enormous, and at Ten Ton Hammer we saw a huge influx of new faces
as the game neared its scheduled publication date. Over the last few
years, the popularity of Conan has continued to rise as Dark Horse
released a new comic book series, a new set of novels based on the Age
of Conan
mythos was released, and a single player Conan game hit stores. But the
one thing that hasn’t occurred as of yet is the release of a brand new
Conan film. As enormous fans of the franchise, the Ten Ton Hammer staff
took some time to track down Fredrik Malmberg, the president and CEO of
Paradox Entertainment (the company that controls the rights to the
Conan Properties) and talked with Fredrik about the latest attempt at a
Conan movie and how it might be tied in with the Age of Conan
MMORPG.
Ten
Ton Hammer: In articles about the film, it has been stressed that
staying true to the Robert E. Howard material is critical, how do the
writers plan on adapting his work for both true fans and a larger
audience?Fredrik: Very good question. My team worked closely with the
writers throughout the process, which has been more than a year now. It
is critical that we reach a bigger audience than the existing fanbase
to justify the budget, and yet we are dealing with an R-rated badass
hero with not all politically correct values. New fans need to
understand what made Conan who he is, so we focused on the character
traits that Howard gave us and hope that this will shine through.
Testlive 1.04 Patch Notes Preview - Ten Ton Hammer
Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures Update 1.04 will soon be making its way to the Testlive forums. Haven, a QA Tester for Funcom, recently posted a detailed preview of the coming update. While this means the update is still a good time away from being implemented on the Live servers, it does offer a good look at some of what will be coming to the game soon.
Please Note: **These notes do not necessarily reflect the final version that will be deployed on Live**
Update Notes for Update 1.04
**These notes do not necessarily reflect the final version that will be deployed on Live**
NEW!
* Dx10 in included in this update! Please be aware that not all areas have been completely optimized to work with Dx10, and some areas may still require further development.
* Cradle of Decay - Level 43 group instance, accessed through Field of the Dead
* Xibaluku - Level 80 group instance
* The Slaughterhouse Cellar - Level 80 single player instance
* Players can now desocket/delete gems in their items by opening the info view of the item and using the shift-rightclick menu on a gem. Desocketing will require a potion crafted by an alchemist. The recipe for this item drops in Xibaluku.
GENERAL
* All areas should now support multiple players zoning at once.
* Food and mana/stamina drink can no longer be used while you already have a buff of the same type running. If you want to change your food/drink-buffs you will need to manually cancel them.
* Alt-tab problems should be fixed now.
* An issue causing server lag spikes has been remedied.
* You will no longer briefly see yourself from inside your head when going from first person view into dialog view.
* The emote relaxed_lean will no longer cause the camera to shake slightly.
* Many server performance fixes were done.
* Fixed the female sitting animation.
* Added some new emotes: Adjust, cough, fart, picknose, and sneeze.
* Added cinematic camera movement when you are killed.
* More than 200 male and female social animations have been polished.
* When creating a new character, the random server chosen will match the client language if possible.
COMBAT
* Tab targeting will no longer target dead players, as requested.
* Characters will now make less noise while using Hiding ability.
* Defensive Stance for all Soldier classes have been put on the level as the Guardian starting at a base for 7%. With Improved Defensive Stance you can gain up to 10%.
* Defensive Stance will now also mitigate magical damage.
* Added stealth fatality animations. Now players will have a chance of doing a fatality on human enemies whenever they attack them from the stealth/sneak-hiding mode.
* The level up animation will no longer play while in combat mode.
* Two handed blunt weapons will no longer sound like blades when being drawn/sheathed.
* The Feared animation should now play correctly when you are feared.
* Players will no longer get stuck in the knockbacked state if they get feared during it.
* A small (1s) cooldown has been added to the Hide ability when it successfully activates. This will prevent a player from entering then immediately exiting Hide state if they were to press the button twice.
* Some pets will now be immune to crowd control effects. This includes: Pitch Pots, Living Firestorm, Living Thunderstorm, Blood Pit, Idol of Set, and Cyclone of Set.
* Fixed an issue where characters could be knocked back under geometry.
* When being knocked off a ledge or similar, the player will now land as if falling, and no longer be able to slide around on his back while getting up.
* You can no longer enter spellweaving when climbing or swimming. If you are hiding or crouching and enter spellweaving, you will leave that state immediately.
* Spells on your shortcut bar will gray out when you cannot cast spells in the state you are in (stunned, feared, charmed ).
* Fixed a bug that caused aborted multihit attacks to not show (client side only) the cooldown of the combo, if the combo would not have hit anything.
* Characters will no longer slide when moving immediately after performing a basic attack using bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons.
* Fixed the line-of-sight bug on tab targeting that made you unable to tab correctly to your next target.
* Dead entities will no longer be auto-targeted when your character faces them.
* Male characters will no longer twist their wrists unnaturally when firing crossbows.
CLASSES
Assassin
* Curse of the Lotus will now snare victims by 50% for the duration of the fear effect.
* Death’s Gaze has a new casting animation.
Barbarian
* Updated the description text of the Impale feat to more clearly reflect the function.
* The description text for the feat Finishing Blow should now be more accurate.
Conqueror
* Added new particle effects to the ‘Blessed Conquest’ ability.
* Updated the description of To the Death to reflect its current functionality.
Dark Templar
* Devourer’s Might will now increase the damage of Soul for our Feast I and Leech Life I.
* Epic armors have been adjusted to a darker color to better fit the feel of the class.
Demonologist
* Added new particle effects to the ‘Planar Shift’ spells.
Herald of Xotli
* The cost of Hell Strikes I has been lowered to 8.3% from 8.8% of your base stamina.
* Reduced the cost of Body and Spirit Wrack II from 16.2% to 15.8% of your base stamina.
* Reduced the cost of Burn to Death from 10.8% to 10.4%.
* All ranks of the Molten Steel Slash combo will now animate and execute slightly faster.
* Added new particle effects to the ‘Phoenix Cloak’ spells.
Necromancer
* All Necromancer pets should now play a “spawn animation” when they are first summoned.
Priest of Mitra
* Added new particle effects to the ‘Hand of Mitra’ and ‘Soul of Mitra’ spells.
Ranger
* Mezz Shots will now play the correct animations for bows and crossbows.
Tempest of Set
* Spell - Thundering Command has been renamed to ‘Spell - Thundering Voice.’
* Added new particle effects to the ‘Serpent Transmutation’ spell.
* Blood Mana’s displayed cooldown timer has been corrected, and adjusted to be more easily readable.
* Storm Field’s base critical hit chance has been increased for all ranks.
* Epic Tempest of Set Pole Arms now add magical Tap Stamina instead of physical.
* Storm Crown/Throne/Regalia has been changed so that you will no longer inflict damage while you have Shield of the Risen running, so that you don’t lose that protection. People in your team will also stop inflicting the pulsing damage if you have Shield of the Risen running. Additionally, people in your team that have Shield of the Risen will not pulse the AOE damage while they have Shield of the Risen running. You should now no longer lose Shield of the Risen while you have Storm Crown active.GUI
* When you change your settings and the confirmation dialog box is open, you will now no longer be able to make any changes until you press Yes or No.
* Fixed a bug where clicking a link in a chat window would sometimes activate text input for that chat window.
* Only shift+leftclick now works for getting player info in chat. Rightclick still opens menu where player info can be selected.
* All options in video/advanced should have a tooltip (when they are not disabled).
* You can now disable buff icon minimizing! Option is found in Interface Options.
* You should no longer stop running when opening the map (when using the mouse to move). If you have the map open and want to start running, you should not click on the map!
* Remapping hotkeys using ALT and CTRL should work properly again.
* Buffs on other characters should now show the correct time remaining when you target the character after the buff has started counting down.
* Keybindings on the shortcuts now are more readable. Long shortcuts are truncated, and long combinations will be indicated by a “+”.
* When you fail to teleport to the same instance as your team, you now get a proper error message.
* Player tooltips will no longer show through other windows (such as the tradepost or bank ui).
* NPC base damage type will now be shown in chat text.
* Resizing in windowed mode will no longer cut off the bottom of the screen.
* Updated and corrected the map for Khopshef.
* Remapping should now work as intended. The order of ALT,SHIFT and CTRL does not matter (e.g. ALT+SHIFT = SHIFT+ALT)
* The buff view will no longer report 1 extra unit when the time displayed is exactly what the time really is. (1:00:00 will no longer report as 2h, while 1:00:01 still does).
* Shift + click to loot is now following the same rules as normal looting.
* Potion effects - Chilled, On Fire, and Charged now have new icons.
* Loot options has a submenu - one tab with personal preferences which will be used when your character creates a team, and another tab which shows the current team’s loot options.
* New Loot options : one setting for loot powerlevel (below which loot is auto-distributed), and one personal setting to pass on items below a given powerlevel.
GUILDS
* Guild cities with barracks now receive straw dummies on which to practice their form.
* The guild message of the day will now show in green with a tag in front of it to make it stand out from the regular chat text.
* Even if you spam guild invites, only one window will be open.
* When you receive a guild invitation you will always see who is inviting you, by name.
* Using an NPC to teleport to your guild city will now place you in a more appropriate location.
* You are no longer able to build two of the same building even if they are initiated at the same time.
ITEMS
* Treasure Chests throughout Hyboria have been improved and filled with more stuff!
* The Winterbrew potion now correctly boosts Cold-based spell damage, as opposed to Fire.
* Gold Tooth now stacks in stacks of 100, and the price has been adjusted slightly.
* New valuables have been introduced to replace the white quality equipment that drops from humanoid NPCs.
* Cloak of Champions is now searchable in the Tradepost.
* Darfari items have been distributed to more Darfari npcs.
* It should not be possible to trade non-tradeable items anymore.
MOUNTS
* Quick Dismount will no longer go on cooldown when activated while riding a Mammoth or Rhino, as this ability does not function with these mounts.
* Characters should no longer pop below the ground momentarily when dismounting in combat.
* Weapons should now appear sooner in the hands of mounted characters who perform attacks without first entering combat mode.
* You should not loop the mount/dismount/stagger animation anymore on observer clients (or your own).
* Characters should no longer experience rubber-band issues when being thrown off their horse.
* You cannot be staggered off your horse while mounting/dismounting anymore.
* The death animations for dying while moving forward when mounted should now work properly, and resurrecting other players who have died this way should be easier.
* Players should no longer be able to use their mount’s special abilities while stunned.
* Cape animations have been adjusted so they no longer intersect with horses while mounted.
* The speed of draw/sheathe animations while mounted has been increased.
* Fixed male animations for drawing/sheathing crossbows while mounted.
* When entering a zone where your mount is prohibited, your mount buff is removed, along with its effects.
NPC/MOBS
* NPCs that deliver a killing blow with any of their combos should now have a chance to proc a fatality on their victim.
* Mounted NPCs should now play their attack animations correctly.
* Dark Beasts will now recover more quickly from knockbacks.
* All NPCs of the ‘Ranger’ class will now play a unique combo-animation when executing their combos.
* Three rival mercenary groups have begun camping in the Cimmerian end of the Border Kingdoms.
* Amphitheatre of Karutonia: It is now no longer possible to provoke infinite spawns from the summoning portal.
* Amphitheatre of Karutonia: Fixed the collision around the Frostfather.
* Amphitheatre of Karutonia: Tigers should no longer stick out of their cages.
* Black Ring Citadel: Seruah now has two new spells. Adds should no longer evade when they can’t reach their target. Fixed a bug where Ripped From Within triggered when it was not supposed to.
* Black Ring Citadel: Changed the name of Chatha’s root spell to “Unnatural Atrophy”. It now targets a random soldier within range.
* Black Ring Citadel: Added a particle effect when Chatha changes into demon form.
* Black Ring Citadel: Fixed a bug that wouldn’t let Chatha change into demon form.
* Black Ring Citadel: Renamed Chatha’s single target knockback in phase 2 to “Savage Toss”.
* Black Ring Citadel: Reduced the power of the Strength in Numbers spell.Visualized the source of the buff with a particle effect.
* Black Ring Citadel: Sabazios’ adds now do poison damage.
* Border Range: Fixed an issue that caused some Dark Beasts to slide around in a static pose while walking back to their original position.
* Ice Dragon Cave: Chill Crawler Shadowbearers now have casting animations.
* Ghanatan Wardogs no longer drop human heads.
* Kheshatta: Chenzira now offers the same merchandise as the other Master Food and Drink vendors.
* Kyllikki: Kyllikki’s minions should now wait a short period after spawning before they attack players.
* Old Tarantia: Lordana has been slightly moved to make her quest indicators more visible.
* Poitain: The Abyssal Lich should now properly follow players during combat.
* Spider Cavern: A Rare Delicacy - The mushrooms are now correctly placed.
* Thunder River: General Lupercus’ dialog now matches his voiceover.
* Thunder River: A new merchant has been placed in the Thunder River Palisades.
* Tortage: Underhalls - Askia is now working as intended in epic and normal mode.
* Villa Camillus: Deformed Creation and Twisted Magus will now drop proper loot.
* Wild Lands: Viterion and Avitus, the teleport NPCs, are now moved away from each other.
* Wild Lands: Fixed some issues with mobs roaming inside geometry.
* Wild Lands: The bears have been moved a bit south of the Wild Plains rez point.
* Wild Lands: The Tortured Man has left the Wild Lands.
* Wild Lands: Keyx is now correctly placed.
* Yakhmar: Reduced Yakhmar’s Wyrmlings magical and poison damage reduction. Increased the time between spawns of Yakhmar’s Wyrmling.
* Yakhmar: Yakhmar now displays a buff when lullaby can trigger.PVP/ MASSIVE PVP
PvP Minigames
* The new minigame signup interface shows the four different minigames players can sign up for. It shows how many players are currently signed up for that particular minigame (players in the same tier as the player, regardless of apprenticeship), as well as allows players to sign up for any of the possible minigames (whichever starts first).
* Annihilate Opposing Team: You will no longer get the capture message if you walk into the north or south quarter before the match starts.
* Annihilate Opposing Team: The healing point in the middle of the playfield will again heal anyone that stands on top of it.
* Annihilate Opposing Team: The health of the resurrection totem was increased.
* Capture the Skull: Renamed the Flag to Skull.
* Capture the Skull: Decreased the amount of skull captures to win from 5 to 3.
* When one of the sides leaves the minigame, this will no longer always result in a tie.
* More than 11 players in a minigame will no longer expand the gui erroneously - the overlay will hide instead.
PvP Notoriety
* Murderer Pathfinders should no longer give you two identical travel options.
* Removed all cooldowns and added some XP to all Redemption quests.
* You or your pets will not splash damage neutral npcs anymore.
* Being killed will not remove the killer from diminishing returns.
* When being attacked in PvP, a player will no longer receive the criminal buff for attacking his opponent’s healer, regardless of the level of the healer.
* The criminal buff will no longer be refreshed by attacking a low level opponent and then switching to a higher level target.
* Resource items will now have a chance of dropping in PvP. These will be PvP Resource items (a new mechanic introduced in Update 1.04). More info to follow…
* PvP droppable resources are now marked as such in their mouseover tooltip.
Massive PvP
* Siege participants should no longer unnecessarily get teleported out.
* The Massive PvP tab can now be opened without being in a guild and without being on the Massive PvP playfield.
* The ballista wont play an explosion particle on each player near the impact any more. The impact visual effect has been changed to be more appropriate for a ballista impact. This should improve performance during sieges.
* Two Wayfarers of Asura have decided to observe the conflict in the Cimmerian end of the Border Kingdoms.
* The losing guild in a siege battle will no longer be able to immediately build a keep anymore.
* The winner of a siege battle should always be reported correctly.
* While participating in a siege, the defending players will now have a red cloak and the attackers will have a blue cloak, for the duration of the battle.
* The PvP area marker should now always appear on the map, as intended. The minimap will show the name of the guild that owns a Battlekeep, and when the next window of vulnerability is.
* The Catapult and Trebuchet particle effect was updated so that it does not play a particle effect on every player that gets hit by the explosion.
* If a player leaves a group during Massive PvP they now have 60 seconds to find a new group. This should make it easier for players to organize players between the two different raids.
* You can no longer interact with NPCs of a Massive PVP City after you lose it to another guild.
QUESTS
* Many grammatical errors and waypoints have been corrected for quests worldwide.
* Several new transition quests for level 40 players have been added. Talk to Peison in Old Tarantia, Mmnemnes in Khemi, Conohmer in Conarch, Gern in Lacheish Plains, Thesilea in Poitain, or Dhumib in Purple Lotus.
* Atzel’s Approach: Kidnapping and Torture - The palisades now have a shorter cooldown.
* Castle of King Conan: Fixed looping dialog in the conversation with Pallantides.
* Kheshatta: Tarantian Armorsmith - Quest reward items updated to accommodate every classes’ needs.
* Khopshef: Destiny Quest 30, The Phoenix of the South - The goals for the first part of the quest have been clarified. The player will now be required first to gather all the lotus, then to place it on the altar. The cutscene will play only at this stage.
* Khopshef: Redemption Quest, Path of Venom - Scorpions updating the quest are found throughout the play area, removing the necessity of a goal marker radius.
* Khopshef: Redemption Quest, Ruthlessness - The 30 heads are now properly removed when the heads are put on the Stone.
* Khopshef: Redemption Quest - Redeemer Drak will from now on allow Stygians to redeem themselves in Khopshef - if they want to.
* Poitain: Chastising the Spirit Children - Fixed quest so spirit stones will no longer disappear before they should.
* Purple Lotus Swamp: Followers of a Crocodile God - The pendants will no longer disappear before they should.
* Purple Lotus Swamp: Healing the Wounds of the Swamp - Replaced a goal reference to ‘Oasis Water’ with the correct ‘Moss’.
* Thunder River: Keeping the Land Safe - Removed the waypoint, as it covered half the playfield.
* Tortage: Destiny Quest Soldier, Awakening III - Some visuals have been added to the cutscene Arrested by Guards.
* Wild Lands: Hidden Treasures - Trade has been reduced to 15 items, as intended.
* Wild Lands: A Vote’s Worth - Quest is no longer shareable.
* Wild Lands: Melis Root flowers will no longer float off the ground.
* Wild Lands: The Demon in the Tree - This quest now works as intended.
* Ymir’s Pass: Heart of Atali - Increased the powerlevel of the necklace reward, and increased the variety of neck-item options.
* Ymir’s Pass: Gaze of Crom - The progress bar for laying the Rabbit Snare, and the snare itself, will now have the appropriate name. You will now receive a more logical quest reward.
* Ymir’s Pass: The Twisted Skein - Renamed the Ancient Dagger quest reward to Preternatural Dagger.
* Ymir’s Pass: The Calm Before the Storm - Removed a waymarker that only led to confusion.
TRADEPOST
* Searches now allow - and ‘ and `
TRADESKILLS
* The minimap will now update a resource node’s icon if it is being used by a player.
* The result items of tradeskill recipes now display a stack size if they produce more than one item.
* You should now always see the correct “Tradeskills” category for quests in your quest journal.
* Black Soulstaff, Mottled Cane, and Stygian Deathcoil Vesture recipes items should teach you the correct recipes.
* When removing/unlearning tradeskills, other feats/spells will not be affected anymore.
* Chopping wood should now take the same amount of time as other harvesting skills.
* If you unlearn a tradeskill, the cooldown will always be removed.
* New Woodcutter recipes are now dropping from the following bosses: Vanir Shaman, Diabolist Aino, Metir-Phumon, Occultist Codril-Kau, Crazed Troglodyte Chief, and Atzel General.
* Gemcutting: You should now always have your quest update, without zoning first, after creating a gem. You should also always be able to create gems without zoning first.
* Weaponsmith: Moonsteel Steel Dart goal name is now Moonsteel Throwing Knife.
* Fixed an issue that was causing base, culture and alchemist recipes to drop less than the intended rates.”
* Inventory icons for dropped recipes have been upgraded.
* Cleaned up a few minor cases where alchemy mats removed in update 3 were dropping when they shouldn’t have.
* Fixed dropped rates of some tradeskill resources that were dropping too frequently.
* Some recipes were not properly requiring the following resources: “Ebony Venom” “Tincture of Bergamot” “Tincture of Mint.” The correct recipes now require these materials.
* A new recipe is now dropping in Xibaluku. It allows alchemists to craft a potion that players may use to dissolve socketed gems, destroying the gem but freeing the slot.
WORLD DESIGN
* Many small adjustments to decrease the chance of getting stuck on collision have been done worldwide.
* Fixed a few cases where the player could get snagged on collision mesh edges.
* The water in now back in Wild Lands of Zelata.
* Atzel’s Approach: Some climbing areas have been improved.
* Black Ring Citadel: The entrance door should now properly open after wiping at Ahazu-Zagam.
* Khopshef Province: The collision of the temple floor has been fixed. Players should no longer sink into the ground.
* Old Tarantia: Removed excess collision between the PvP vendors.
* Old Tarantia: When a player enter Old Tarantia from the Outflow Tunnels they will end up on a more logical place.
* Thunder River: Placed new discoverable resurrection points.
* Removed an invisible wall in the Inn in the Wild Lands.
AoC: Border Kingdom Cryer - Server Mergers on the Horizon - Ten Ton Hammer
Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures (AoC) got another small update this week and the first server merger between ‘Hyperboria’ and ‘Bloodspire’ was set to take place but suffered a delay due to some technical issues. Funcom US Community Manager Glen "Famine" Swan has posted a lot of new information and a Faq explaining several parts of the server merger process and how certain things like player names and Battle Keeps will be handled post merger. With the mergers looming over the horizon forum discussion has only intensified. This has led to an increase in flames and rants making it a difficult job to find all the good information. Let the Border Kingdom Cryer save you the trauma of reading through the drama. Join us as we examine some of the top pieces of discussion over the past week. The first server merger is delayed, Famine discusses the mergers with the community, kitty comedy makes the Weekly Funny, and Ten Ton Hammer bids a fond farewell to the comical icon known as Coyote, all this and more in this week’s Border Kingdom Cryer.
Ten Ton Hammer’s very own Coyote will be moving on to other things after this month. The staff and community are bidding farewell to one of the most comical personalities this site has ever known. Coyote authored the Blog "Not Funny Ever" and costarred in the Podcast "Game Over" with RadarX. Coyote and his unique brand of comical humor will be missed.
Server Merger Update - Ten Ton Hammer
Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures (AoC) will be getting its long awaited server merger before Christmas. Funcom US Community Manager Glen "Famine" Swan laid out the plans in a recent post on the Official AoC forums. The future server mergers will include some free game time for players to cover the downtime needed for the mergers. Players will also have the option to use one free server transfer should they wish to start on a different server.
As announced a few weeks ago, we will merge the Age of Conan servers before the Christmas Holidays. Today we want to give you some detailed information about how these merges will happen and what this will mean for you, the players.
We will be spreading the server merges over the next few weeks so not all the servers will be merged at the exact same time. It is important to us to ensure that the merge process goes as smooth as possible. Therefore it is vital that we spread out the work rather than doing these complicated processes all at the same time in order to minimize possible risks.
The first servers that will be merged are the US servers ‘Bloodspire’ and ‘Hyperborea’. The list of servers for the next merges will be published shortly.
It is important to know that during the time servers will be merged, all servers of the same territory (US or EU) will not be available. This means that during this week’s downtime - where the two above mentioned servers are merged - all US servers will be unavailable. The exact duration of such a downtime will be announced soon but we do expect them to be longer than the usual update downtime.
When the merge process is complete we will be giving all active subscribers an appropriate amount of free game-time to compensate for the additional downtime required for the merges. The details of this will be communicated once the merge process is complete.
It’s important for us to ensure the best game-play experience for you all, and more healthy populations on each and every server will make sure we maintain healthy communities for the game in the future.
Once the merges are complete we will be offering a free one-use character transfer option for all characters so that if you wish to join a different community after the merge than the one you were allocated you are free to do so. This transfer will be free of charge and can be used once per character and will be available from your billing pages.
Also after the merges are complete we will be opening up new ‘fresh start’ servers in both the US and EU territories. One each for PVE and PVP rulesets. Transfer will not be allowed to these servers after the merges. These new servers are designed to allow players to start afresh in a totally new environment should they wish to do so and forge a new community instead of joining one of the newly merged ones.
We wanted to post this announcement with a server merge FAQ but we will aim for tomorrow instead. We saw no point in holding back the bulk of the announcement just on that minor issue.
RECAP
(Questions answered in the thread in relation to the above announcement)
Sorry for the delay. I did have to drive home! Here is a quick recap:
- Questions on battlekeeps, names, and ect will be covered tomorrow in the FAQ hopefully.
- We will have to pull all the US servers down to do this small merge.
- There is no official ETA on the downtime but the going rate thus far is 5-6 hours. More information on that soonish.
- We are still aiming to come up after the first merge. Future merges will happen shortly after but hopefully at a faster rate.
- The first set of merges are Oceanic servers and thus the two Oceanic servers are being merged.
These are answers to questions not posed in the FAQ for tomorrow. Please try to keep everything civil as I know not everyone will agree with the merges. I will try to address all concerns as much as I can throughout the entire process so please be patient. Even though I know it’s hard! It’s a very exciting time for everyone and it’s the best time for us to be as informative as we can at the right time.
