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Age of Conan dev update talks open-world PvP, House of Crom
Funcom game director Craig Morrison has released his monthly Age of Conan development update a couple of weeks early. Morrison usually closes each month with a summary of where the game has been and where it's going, and the December version is no different save for the mid-month release date. While there's a lot of info, the most interesting bits concern the projected live date of the long-awaited House of Crom dungeon. Morrison says that the new content will most likely debut on January 11th or 12th, and that the dungeon will be playable on AoC's test shard over the Christmas holidays. Also new this month is a detailed explanation of the game's upcoming open-world PvP content. When the new feature was first announced, the game's hardcore PvP community unleashed an epic tidal wave of tears due to suppositions about "PVE sheep trying to pass in PVP wolf's clothing," not to mention concerns about a possible rehash of the game's disastrous Shrines of Bori mechanic. Morrison spends several paragraphs of this month's update explaining what Funcom has learned since Bori, and how that knowledge is going to translate into a fun system that isn't exploitable via PvE mechanics. You can read the full update at the official AoC website.
The Anvil of Crom: Is Age of Conan a PvP-focused game?
One of the great things about Massively is the deluge of MMO information and opinion that is spread across the site on a daily basis. Since I'm so closely tied to our Age of Conan coverage, it's interesting to read other writers' perspectives on Hyboria, particularly when they don't match my own. Take one of our recent early-morning conversation starters in which Funcom's title is described as a PvP-focused game. Despite being a throw-away reference, the wording here struck a strange chord. Age of Conan does feature both open world and instanced PvP, but said PvP is -- in my experience -- a red-headed step-child in terms of content updates, system tweaks, and player preference. The key here is "in my experience," and it's amazing how a simple turn of phrase like "PvP-focused game" can send the mind drifting on all manner of perceptual tangents. Analytically, though, is Age of Conan a PvP-focused game as of May 2011? Head past the cut to find out.
