notoriety
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The Anvil of Crom: Age of Conan anniversary retrospective
Thinking of coming back to Age of Conan? You're not alone, as the recently released Rise of the Godslayer expansion, plus a wave of generally positive buzz, have conspired to reverse the fortunes that Funcom's ambitious Hyborian MMORPG experienced during its rocky launch. Two years is an eternity in the computer gaming world, and the game bears little more than a skin-deep resemblance to the title that launched way back in May 2008. Age of Conan has undergone significant revision in its short lifespan, from a sweeping combat and itemization revamp to the addition of numerous dungeons and play fields, all of them pre-dating the new expansion. The laundry list of additions can be broken down into six major categories: combat and itemization, PvP, crafting, gameplay, new zones, and the expansion. We'll also touch on smaller details such as performance tweaks and offline leveling, so hack your way past the cut to see the gory details.
Leading a life of crime in Earthrise
Today's post-holiday Question of the Week for Earthrise concerns the game mechanics of being (and killing) criminals in the post-apocalyptic MMO. Players who opt to become felons will build up "Criminal Karma", what seems to be a sort of quantified notoriety. From what the developers are saying, it seems that going outlaw won't be a trivial choice, given such characters will be kill-on-sight in the more secure regions of Enterra island. Also, it may be difficult to wipe the slate clean if a character has a shady past. According to Moll, the Earthrise Community Manager: "Criminals cannot clear their records, nor do they generate additional Karma by killing other criminals in safe zones." She adds that criminals who hunt down other criminals won't do so to repair their faction standings, rather there may be a good chance of obtaining loot by taking out a fellow wrongdoer. However, beyond such scenarios where 'evil fights evil', Earthrise's law-abiding citizens will have incentives for killing the criminals of Enterra; successfully knocking off criminal players will garner them extra Contribution rewards (faction standing).
Earthrise developers seeking player input
Players having more input or control over the games they play is an interesting direction some MMO companies are taking. While not every company will establish something structured as EVE Online has with the Council of Stellar Management or (as Massively reader Se7en pointed out yesterday) Star Wars Galaxies has with its Galactic Senate, the simple fact that game developers are making efforts to allow more player input is encouraging. Masthead Studios is a newcomer to the MMO scene with Earthrise, a far future post-apocalyptic title, but already they're showing an interest in getting player feedback as they develop the game. The devs at Masthead will now have a "Community Consensus" on the Earthrise forums which brings up key issues with the game's design, to learn how players feel about these aspects of the title. It's not clear yet exactly how much input the players will really have on Earthrise but if the devs are willing to listen to the playerbase, we'd say this is a step in the right direction. The first Community Consensus deals with an issue that will likely be hotly debated -- adding additional incentive for player killing, with greater benefits at higher levels of notoriety.
Today's Age of Conan patch should be last one before new PvP system
This morning, the Age of Conan servers received a small patch, tagged as patch 1.5. There's not much in it: a fix to the charging issues (that's charging into battle, not charging a credit card), a change to the price of basic riding skills (to 25 silver) and a few other bits and bobs. Small though it is, it's already caused the servers to be brought down for another 5 hours for technical reasons.The more interesting news is that patch 2.0, which apparently brings with it the long awaited PvP consequence system, is set to go live on September 3rd. The usual disclaimers apply: we can't say for certain that this will happen, what appears on Testlive may not make it to Live, and so on and so forth.There's a lot more to that patch than just the PvP system, of course. It's not the whole system, either, just the basics of it, namely PvP XP and the Notoriety system, which marks you as a criminal or murderer depending on who you slay. PvP gear is not yet included, so it's impossible to tell how worthwhile it is. Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
'What If' Mechanics: Notoriety
I got to thinking about the nature of quests in most MMOs, and how they're as generic as possible, to appeal to a specific class, or race, or faction. And then I was reading Kevin's Pirates of the Burning Sea post, and got to musing how cool it would be if there were a worldwide system in place to accumulate notoriety.By that I mean, what if your in-game exploits actually affected the way you're perceived? What if you were such a notorious ganker, for example, that the game suddenly put a reward on your head? What if you logged in one day and found that you were on the Public Enemies list, and other players could receive substantial coin for taking you out? Or the opposite: what if you were widely known for your altruism, and that affected other players' perception of you, to the point where they would see actual physical changes in your avatar, such as a halo of light around your head?MMOs are great for the shared social experience, but I'd like to see one's actions having a lasting effect in-game, where reputation affects more than your status among NPCs. Is this something that's already in place somewhere?
Can you game your way to (virtual) fame?
A guide to Second Life fame was blogged on Mean Girls Guide to SL yesterday. Kitty LaLonde posted quite a few tips on how to obtain a sizable level of notoriety, while including some decidedly Not Safe For Work (NSFW) pictures. It covers such topics as naming yourself, pretending to know designers, and creating an alt to spread rumors about yourself.I have mixed feelings about this entry. While she offers some good points, such as starting a blog, attending premieres, and scouring the forums to find the hottest new releases, a lot of it reads like satire. However, I'm sure some girls will actually follow this advice to the letter.The long answer to this guide is, you can't achieve fame quickly without being born in infamy. If you want to establish a good reputation, you need to work hard at being seen and heard. If being a bad girl doesn't bother you, then by all means, spread those rumors. Just remember that people will not forget about you and it will be even longer before they consider forgiving you for your mistakes. The choice is yours!
Seeing the effects of guild affiliation
See, this post by superdeluxe over on Livejournal, I think, constitutes exactly the kind of great "emergent gameplay" that the folks at Terra Nova are so ga-ga over lately. The poster found his way into a guild that, because of their size, is well-known and loved on his side of the server, and as a result, he finds that he's getting "10-20 times the amount of Free buffs/free stuff/bow's/hugs etc than I did before."He's not on an RP server-- rather, his guild has just built up a social reputation, and he's benefiting from it. Likewise, a commenter on the post says his guild, because of PvP, has a negative reputation, and as a result, he became Kill-on-Sight for a number of opposing faction guilds around the server. The only way this stuff is built into the game is that Blizzard has put everyone's guild name above their character, and players have socially created all the rest of these affiliations themselves.Now, a lot of it simply follows from common sense: my guild isn't huge, but every time I see someone with my guild name, I'll /wave and buff, even if it's someone I don't know that well. We haven't really made too many enemies (well, we did have a little tussle with the alliance that we seperated from, but they've since dissolved), but as we've moved further and further into the endgame (we're still not server-first, but we're working on it), we've created more and more of a reputation as a known and trusted guild on the server.What other examples of this have you seen? I'm fascinated with the way players treat each other based on guild affiliation-- at their essence, guilds are mostly the social structure within a realm in the World of Warcraft.
